


and She who made kittens put snakes in the grass

by sevdrag (seventhe)



Series: the Snamily Chronicles (40 snakes-verse) [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 40 Snake Children, ????????? - Freeform, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Brandy - Freeform, Children, Crowley Needs A Hug And Some Gin, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, God has forsaken this fic, Kinky Bath Hours, M/M, Parenthood, Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Snakes, Stinky Bastard Child, Weird Plot Shit, dads, deLETE THIS, fluff and snangst, i am prepared to be defriended here, like i don't even know what to tag, look at this beautiful business child, snakeverse, snamily, we're starting with a sweet boy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2020-01-22
Packaged: 2020-06-26 01:28:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19757800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhe/pseuds/sevdrag
Summary: Sometimes a family can be a doting angel, a cranky demon, and their adorable forty snake children.





	1. they're snakes. just. snakes

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Pop the Clutch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427911) by [annabagnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabagnell/pseuds/annabagnell). 



> _i literally dont believe this is the first thing im posting into this absolutely gorgeous fandom someone please end me_
> 
> This started with annabagnell's [fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19427911) but for those who may be squicked by those tags, all you need to know is that Aziraphale Zira Fell and Anthony Janthony Crowley are in love and recently had 40 snake babies.
> 
> It then continued when aw-writing-no and I absolutely devolved over discord, leading to [this terrible tumblr post](https://sevdrag.tumblr.com/post/186015990565/sevdrag-aw-hawkeye-no-sevdrag-sevdrag), the [snakeverse](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/snakeverse) tag, literal tears as we just continued to roll down back on our bullshit hill, and my desperate desire to preserve this all in fiction.
> 
>  _oh lord,_ i say happily into the void, _bless this family_

“Crowley?”

Crowley pretended he didn’t startle, instead taking his time to slowly slither upwards from his crouch over the cardboard moving box. “Yes, angel?”

Aziraphale was standing at the end of the hallway, wringing his hands, and Crowley took a moment to track the way the angel’s eyes couldn’t help trailing up his lanky body as he stood. Crowley took advantage, resting an elbow against the wall and slouching against his own hand in a move he knew worked well with the angles of his lines and hips. “Can I help you?”

He was modestly thrilled when Aziraphale had to swallow, rough, before he could speak. “My dear,” his angel said, his voice notably a bit dry. “What in the world are you, em, doing?”

Crowley looked down into the box at his feet. Forty different types of snake were packed in there on a pile of towels, sleepily slithering around each other, comfortable and sated. “I’m about to take a trip out to the country. Fancy a drive?”

Aziraphale frowned, his forehead wrinkling like an unhappy paper. “You’re taking them?”

Crowley shrugged. He’d spent years perfecting the casual shrug, the way it sort of shimmied down the lines of his body slowly, like ripples in a pond. “I’m off to spread some evil, angel. Share a bit of chaos with some lucky little town. Did you know snakes are actually good for farmers? They take care of _rodentssss._ ”

Aziraphale, to his surprise, looked rather offended. “It’s not a big evil,” Crowley hastened to add. “They’re just snakes, really.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said, using the slow stern voice he used when he thought Crowley was doing something particularly daft, carefully pronouncing every syllable with utter disgruntled outrage. “Those are our _children._ ”

“They’re really not.” Crowley corrected him. “They’re snakes, Aziraphale, every day normal animal snakes. True creatures. Reptilia. _Ser-pen-tessss_.” He paused, watching the incredulous look on Aziraphale’s face grow even wider, eyebrows raised and jaw dropping. It was quite fascinating. “Snakes,” he added, as the final point, with a nod.

“Those,” Aziraphale said, now through gritted teeth as if he were truly upset, “are our _offspring._ ”

“No,” Crowley began, and then — “well, yes, technically, but it’s not like they’re _really._ They’re snakes. Plain old, ordinary, non-angel, non-demon, normal godda- sat- _fucking_ snakes.”

“They’re ours,” Aziraphale continued, stubbornly. “They’re a miracle.”

“The only miracle here is that I didn’t _miracle_ them out of my own _body,_ ” Crowley said, in a huff. This was really quite ridiculous. 

“Exactly!” Aziraphale raised his eyebrows as if his point had been made for him. “We made them, they grew _inside you,_ they are our _offspring_ and I _won’t_ have you dumping them off in a field for a lark.”

Crowley could tell when Aziraphale had decided he was going to win an argument no matter what. The key, he’d found, for coming out on top was to execute one of two strategies. The first was to distract Aziraphale with sex until he’d quite forgotten the entire discussion; the second was to find a point of compromise that gave his angel the satisfaction of winning without soiling too much of his own pride. Disappointingly, Crowley could tell that his chances of tempting Aziraphale into removing his clothing for a shag on the carpet had passed.

“Fine, then,” he began, crouching down again beside the box. “Pick one or two you like, right, I’m sure the bookshop would be happy to have a pet or three. Look at you,” he murmured, reaching down to pull out a particularly brightly-colored specimen. It was all corals and white and black, incredibly sleek. Crowley felt a bizarre burst of pride as it sleepily wove its way around his arm — which he immediately squashed. “Here’s a pretty one. D’you like him?”

Aziraphale continued to huff, crossing his arms and pouting. Crowley hated when Aziraphale pouted, because it was adorable, and it severely affected his demon cool to be distracted by something adorable. “I will _not_ play favorites with our children,” his angel said.

“What, then?” Crowley dug around in the miraculously-sleepy tangle to gently pull out another: bright green, verdant as Eden, _hells_ but he had made some particularly gorgeous snakes. “You want to keep them all?”

“ _Precisely_ ,” said Aziraphale.

When nothing else followed, Crowley looked up, sharply. Aziraphale’s face was set, firm, looking down at Crowley and the box as if everything were settled.

“Angel,” Crowley said slowly. “Love. There are forty snakes in this box.”

“I know,” said Aziraphale, as if he were starting a fight. 

“Really.” Crowley drew it out, just to add extra annoyance into the word. “Forty snakes.”

“Our forty lovely offspring,” Aziraphale said, with a bit of a proud sigh. His face was still absolutely resolved, decision already made, but his firm mouth had softened. It was almost… sweet.

“You,” Crowley repeated, because he absolutely had to make sure. “Want to keep. Forty snakes. In our home.”

Aziraphale, apparently sensing that this might be a sticking point, nodded. “They’re our _children_ , Crowley. Of course they’ll live with us. How else will we make sure they’re growing up proper?”

“You’re punishing me,” Crowley realized slowly. “You had to take care of me for months and now you’re having a good old revenge at me.”

Aziraphale gasped. “My dear, I would _never._ ” He then wiggled himself upright, looking even more prim. “And certainly not with our own children, Crowley.”

Unfortunately, Crowley had also learnt to tell exactly when Aziraphale was about to go round the plot in stubborn anger, something that never ended well for either of them. He recognized it now: the crazy glint in his angel’s eyes, the set of his jaw, the way he was staring down adoringly at Crowley and the box because he knew Crowley was incapable of ever saying no to something Aziraphale really wanted.

“For fuck’s sake,” Crowley snapped. “For _Adam’s_ fucking bloody arsehole sake. Fine. We’ll keep them all.”

Aziraphale’s face beamed, softening instantly, turning his radiant gaze onto Crowley. “I do love you, my dear.”

“Satan _wept_ ,” Crowley shot back, although the endearment always softened him somewhat, the reminder of all that they’d been through, those words a catch-all for six thousand and some years of togetherness. “Right. Well,” he said, with a sigh, as he waved a hand to remove the aura of sleepiness he’d been keeping on them and tipped the box on its side. A tangle of bodies fell from it, wriggling, all sorts of colors like the Garden all over again. “Welcome to the family.”

———

It had been, Crowley maintained, after a week, a terrible idea to keep forty snakes.

He maintained this often, verbally, every time he could, mostly to Aziraphale but occasionally at the plants, his couch, and the snakes themselves. Aziraphale had started tuning him out, which irritated Crowley as much as it impressed him. He’d just have to start _maintaining_ a little bit louder.

Most of the snakes had learnt to congregate with Crowley’s plants. It was the best space for them, really, and Aziraphale had been sneaking little miracles to expand the room, adding in rocks that stayed consistently warm and spots of sunlight that needed no windows. He seemed to be developing at least two different environments, Crowley had noticed, although Aziraphale was working so slowly it was hard to tell. It would have been charming, really, except that Aziraphale truly thought Crowley hadn’t noticed, and went around humming to himself, normally with a snake or three draped round his collar as if they were accessories to his bowtie.

It had been all over snakes for a week. Snakes in the sink. Snakes round the teapot. Snakes in the microwave, for hell’s sake. Snakes on the telly, snakes in the bathroom, snakes in their dressers and drawers. Crowley now woke up to tiny inquisitive hissing faces every morning, faces that were not Aziraphale, faces that weren’t going to kiss him back into the mattress. 

The worst part was that Aziraphale absolutely, disgustingly, horrifyingly _loved_ it. He cooed at them when they, inevitably, woke him from a nap or curled around the pages of a book for attention. He sang to them while making his morning tea, and would happily fill mugs with hot water for them to curl around, all the while talking sweet low compliments at them as if they could understand. Aziraphale never minded finding one in his shoe, gasped delightedly when they surprised him from behind, and often took as many as he could carry through their magically-miracled door into the bookshop like it was a field trip.

The worst part was also the best part, because Aziraphale was so _happy_ it made Crowley sick. Sick with fondness, and love, and quite a few bits of exasperation besides.

“We’re going to have to start naming them,” Aziraphale announced one afternoon. Crowley was prowling amongst his plants, hissing threats under his breath and ensuring that the sudden addition of forty snakes hadn’t upset his delicate ecosystem or his delicately bullying relationship with his plants. “Will you call them, please.”

Crowley groaned, dramatically. “Some days, angel, I swear you’re only using me for my tongue.”

Aziraphale glanced up from the rock he was convinced he was still hiding from Crowley. He arched an eyebrow and gave Crowley That Look. It was the kind of Look that made Crowley want to get on his knees and start removing articles of clothing. It was the kind of Look that was scathingly hot and stupidly endearing at the same time, which encompassed a lot of things Crowley usually felt about Aziraphale. He felt himself blush, which made him snappish.

“Fine,” Crowley said. “But don’t blame me when my tongue’s too tired for ...other thingsssss.”

“Call the children, dear,” Aziraphale said mildly, as if he hadn’t just given Crowley the sexiest eyebrow raise in the history of eyebrows.

Crowley hissed. They’d found that while their snakes were, in fact, simple everyday buggering snakes, with absolutely no sort of supernatural abilities whatsoever, Crowley could use his own snake nature and a bit of a demonic miracle to make them understand him, to a point. He was actually mildly disappointed to not be reporting back to Hell anymore; imagining the look on Dagon’s face when reviewing the number of miracles used to speak to forty snake children was amusing enough to make him consider the paperwork momentarily.

The snakes began to slither their way out of the woodwork, stonework, flooring, carpets, cushions, bedding, dressers, drawers, towels, teacups, plants, wine bottles, slippers, empty biscuit wrappers, lamps, blankets, picture frames, dirty trousers, clean trousers, closets, bookshelves, corners, plastic bags, coffee mugs, and - in one case - leftover curry Crowley had forgotten to either bin or vanish. They gathered round Aziraphale, who’d left the rock alone to sit cross-legged on the floor, exclaiming delightedly as they approached him, sniffing the air with tiny tongues and hissing dramatically at each other.

Hells, Crowley thought, but they’re beautiful: snakes of all sizes, colors, patterns, a veritable museum-worthy collection of little gems, scattered across the floor. He was allowed to be _proud_ of his children. Pride was a great sin, really, one of the worst. Quite sinny, pride. That was alright. It didn’t mean he _liked_ them.

“We’re going to give you all good, proper names,” Aziraphale was saying as he reached out to them, stroking their little heads and slender backs. “Names from literature, I think. Historical names. Good, strong names.”

Crowley gave in and dropped to the floor across from his angel, slouching dramatically, propped up on an elbow with his other arm draped across his knee. “What’s the point? It isn’t like they’re going to _learn_ them.”

“No,” Aziraphale said primly, “but we will.” He lifted up one gorgeous specimen, banana-yellow and sleek. “You, my dear, we shall call you Hermione.”

“That’s a boy,” Crowley said, just to be contrary. He couldn’t actually tell from here, and didn’t really care, but it was worth the annoyed little huff Aziraphale made.

“Gender is a _construct_ , Crowley,” his angel said, waspishly, “and I’m fairly sure snakes don’t have it.”

“It’s got boy parts,” Crowley added, insistent, although he truly had no idea. “You’ll give it a complex.”

“You’ll give _me_ a complex,” Aziraphale muttered, as he set Hermione down and picked up another snake, this one rather plain, in black and browns. “Insisting snakes have gender roles. _Really._ ”

“Hells, look at this one,” Crowley said, picking up something that looked somewhat like a worm, if a worm were longer, fatter, and had an alarmingly adorable forked tongue. “Ugly thing. Beastly. I don’t believe you came out of me. Imposter child.”

“ _Crowley!_ ” Aziraphale admonished him, dropping the snake he’d just dubbed Laertes and grabbing for the thing. “All of our children are beautiful. _All_ God’s creations are.”

“Ugly,” Crowley continued, shaking his head. “Stupid bastard son.”

“I shall call you Gilgamesh,” Aziraphale announced, cupping the tiny thing in his hands as if it were the most precious cup of tea he’d ever experienced. “Gilgamesh the Mighty.”

“Give me back my stinky bastard son,” Crowley said, reaching. “You’ll give them _all_ a complex, names like that.”

———

Crowley’s flat, as it had been, had been perfect: enough high ceilings and empty space to be the opposite of Hell, with organic rock walls and dramatically ornate furnishings to also be the opposite of Heaven. Crowley liked it, as much as he cared about a living space. It was a cave, a haven, all dramatic corners and angles, somewhat like him. Filled only with particular, specific, important things. 

He’d been surprised when Aziraphale had liked it, as well; he’d asked, but Aziraphale had simply given him a sly smile and said, “It’s quite like you, my dear, and I do like you.” It was nothing like the bookshop, of course, but the bookshop was the angel’s. At least, that had been the delineation until they’d had the brilliant idea to miracle the doorway in the hall to lead directly to the bookshop itself, rather than the coat closet Crowley had only used to punish traitorous plants. The boundary had since blurred substantially, with shabby blankets across Crowley’s white leather couch, and a number of sufficiently frightened ivies had been installed in proper places amongst Aziraphale’s shelves.

They’d both taken to gently miracling the flat itself, small changes as they found they needed them. The flat itself was real, a penthouse setup on the thirteenth floor, at the very top of the building. Crowley hadn’t even had to _do_ much to convince all possible landlords and renters that the thirteenth floor was unlucky, haunted, and therefore did not exist. The best sorts of trouble were the ones humans got into all on their own. It made it very convenient.

But today Crowley had walked into his own bathroom fancying a shower - something he did occasionally, rather than miracling himself clean, because he liked the decadence of the hot water - and had instead found an enormously broad tub more like a sunken pool, frothy bubbles on the surface, with Aziraphale reclining in a corner. 

And snakes. Many snakes. Snakes draped around Aziraphale’s shoulders, snakes swimming through the bath, snakes curled up in puddles and on towels on the tiled floor around the magical new tub. So many snakes. 

“Do come in, dear,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley realized his angel was quite naked underneath the foam. This normally would have led to the kind of knee-jerk miracle that produced a naked Crowley in contact with as much naked Aziraphale as he could find, except for the snakes.

“What on earth are you doing?” Crowley couldn’t quite keep the incredulous shock out of his voice. His eyes were tracing down the soft tuft of curly hair on Aziraphale’s chest, and his fingers wanted very much to go trace it as well. His legs, however, hadn’t yet got with the tracing program, because that particular portion of his brain was still taking in the excessively large bathroom with its generous skylights, clean tiling, and gigantic honking tub. Pool. Thing. “Aziraphale, is that a sauna?”

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale said, as if _Crowley_ were the mad one. “Some of the children like dry heat, you know.”

“ _Is that a snake hole in the door,_ ” Crowley said. It wasn’t a question, really, because he knew it was, but the words had to be said aloud or they’d explode inside his brain.

“Well, yes!” Aziraphale seemed pleased that he’d noticed. “They need to get in and out, don’t they?”

“They need to—” Crowley sputtered. What in hell had happened to his gorgeous, dark, calming rain shower with its textured granite tiles and embedded speakers? 

“Just get in,” Aziraphale repeated, and he snapped his fingers at Crowley. Crowley blinked, and found himself quite naked.

He looked at the snakes. The snakes looked back, or didn’t look at all, because they were asleep, or because they were really just snakes and didn’t much care.

Crowley got into the pool. It was alarmingly perfect. The water was just on this side of hot, and felt _soft_ in that way that meant there were oils, and salts, and other disgustingly luxurious things to remove toxins and soothe aches and pains; Aziraphale had an unacknowledged addiction to things like these, and they’d already had to expand the linen closet to fit his collection of artisan soaps and exotic epsoms.

A snake swam over, lifting its head out of the water curiously. Its tongue tasted the air. “Bugger off,” Crowley said. “Beastly thing.”

“Oh, he doesn’t mean it, Marguerite.” Aziraphale stood, revealing even more of that lovely skin, all creamy and soft and appropriately accented with suds, like icing on the most delicious cake. Crowley looked, and enjoyed, and felt the usual stirrings of need he felt every time he was, well, in the same room as Aziraphale. 

“Come here,” he purred, moving closer, and Aziraphale met him towards the middle of the bath, sliding wet soapy hands into Crowley’s hair to tug him into a kiss. It was slow, seductive, full of the kind of emotion and meaning only his angel could express that way with a mouth. Crowley ran his hands up Aziraphale’s slippery back, fingers grabbing at his shoulder blades, and kissed back. Aziraphale’s mouth was a miracle itself. So good. So demanding, always asking Crowley to give more, and he did: pressing into Aziraphale’s lips, licking at his teeth, sucking at his tongue; Crowley would give Aziraphale anything, everything, and had, and made sure to remind the angel of his particular generosity daily.

Crowley clutched Aziraphale closer, relishing the warm wet skin pressed against his, the feeling of sparks of heat rising, swirling, at every point of contact. He felt Aziraphale hardening against him, just below the surface of the silky water, and shifted his thigh to produce that glorious choking sound Aziraphale always made. His angel was licking at his neck, now, sucking at the tendon, and Crowley opened his eyes, expecting to see a small bench or nook along the side of the bath where he could get Aziraphale in his lap.

He’d somehow forgot the snakes. Watching idly, sunning themselves, a few still swimming lazy circles around the two naked humans. Crowley paused.

“My dear,” Aziraphale murmured against his neck, tongue tracing the syllables against his skin. Crowley shivered. “What’s the matter?”

“I just,” Crowley began, trying to shut out everything that wasn’t Aziraphale. It didn’t work. “I mean. Um. In front of the children?”

Aziraphale blinked, then pulled back to beam up at Crowley. “The _children,_ ” he murmured reverently, his face reflecting that sudden rush of angelic joy and love, the sort of awe that made Crowley feel immeasurably safe and ineffably small. “Oh, darling.”

“I hate you,” Crowley said conversationally, although his hands and his cock were both saying something else entirely, and miracled them off to the bed, where he also ensured they wouldn’t crush any _absolutely normal bloody snakes_ with their activities.

———

Even with their miracled doorway, Crowley still enjoyed picking Aziraphale up at the bookshop in the Bentley. It was a chance to drive the car, for one, since having everything accessible at their fingertips had the potential to cut down extensively on his driving time, but it was also familiar. A habit, borne of the decades the bookshop had been in place, the long years Crowley had spent picking Aziraphale up to whisk him away somewhere else: somewhere delightful, somewhere lovely, somewhere Crowley could gaze longingly and break his own heart as the angel continued on unperturbed. 

That part of the tradition, at least, had been done away with. But the rest was ritual, and Crowley didn’t intend to lose that to simple convenience. He’d found a new sushi place, just opened, with a refreshingly long list of sake offerings. It was a lovely evening, just enough clouds to keep the sun at bay, and there was a small table on the sidewalk that would remain open for some time.

He parked the car out front, the handicapped spot miraculously and suddenly without any signage, and strolled in the front door. “Hey, angel!”

The chair behind the desk was empty, but Crowley could hear the rhythmic sounds of Aziraphale’s voice. Reciting something, perhaps, trying to impress a customer to which he would then sturdily refuse to sell to. Incorrigible, his angel. Crowley wasn’t even sure why the shop was still open, since he didn’t really share Aziraphale’s delight in connecting with random strangers only to deny them their purchase.

Crowley rounded the corner and — and stopped.

Aziraphale was sat on the ground, a few pillows propped behind his back against the bookshelf he leaned on. He had a picture book open in his lap, something terribly gaudy, olde illustrations with too many teeth by someone who was completely unable to draw anything resembling a cat. He was reading aloud, a fairy tale Crowley recognized, in the original Latin.

And the snakes were everywhere: curled into his lap, wrapped around his legs, two of them distinctly nestled in his hair. There was a blanket over Aziraphale’s feet, and snakes were puddled in it, coiled contentedly. Some of them were draped along the shelves, and the fat pale one - Aziraphale called it Horacio, while Crowley called it Sausage, or Idiot - was hanging from one of the hooks Crowley had discreetly installed while planning out the bookshop’s greenery. 

Aziraphale was, obviously, miracling some sort of understanding into their tiny, stupid snake minds. There was no other obvious explanation for the way they all seemed to be — either paying attention, or content to rest, as Aziraphale’s voice continued to read, with precise diction and a mostly acceptable pronunciation. It was either that, or the snakes had all suddenly decided that Aziraphale was the most interesting mouse they’d ever had the chance to eat.

Crowley felt his heart flutter, which was absolutely disgusting. The scene was so - so — so _domestic,_ so soddingly perfect, the soft smile on Aziraphale’s face as he turned the page, then tilted the book somewhat as if Sausage could really see the illustration offered. It was the sort of picture-perfect moment, a father surrounded by children, all cuddled up and soft and settled, and it was generating this warm feeling in Crowley’s chest. Fondness, he could admit to. Love? That was all seven sins tied up like a bow around his heart, that was alright for him to own. But this odd domesticity, this rush of tender warmth to see Aziraphale reading to their snakes: hells, Crowley loathed it, with every hellforsaken atom of his demonic being. It was a feeling altogether too _nice_ for him.

Nevertheless, he eventually gave into it, and went to sit beside Aziraphale.

Aziraphale didn’t stop, continuing to read in his slow, methodical, rhythmic cadence. Crowley shoved aside several of their snakes - he recognized Stinky, Throat-Ripper, and Ham - so that he could tuck himself up against Aziraphale’s side. The snakes immediately slithered up onto him, one wrapping round his wrist, another coiling itself on his thigh. Crowley sighed. 

Sloth. Sloth was another good sin he could get behind. And this was abject sloth, really, an afternoon wasted in the least productive way possible. There was absolutely nothing virtuous that could come from reading fairy tales to snakes, which meant Crowley should do everything in his power to keep Aziraphale doing it for as long as possible.

He snuggled in closer, feeling somewhat snake-like himself, and worked his feet underneath the blanket, disturbing several small children who simply slid into their new position without waking.

“This is so incredibly adorable,” Crowley announced even as he was adjusting his long limbs for comfort. “I hate it. You’re absolutely horrid, angel.”

“That’s all right, then,” Aziraphale said, soft and quiet, and Crowley leaned in to rest his head on the angel’s shoulder.


	2. out of my mouth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! welcome to this cursed fic, which has exploded beyond my ability to control and will soon become a beautiful multimedia experience. _please end me_

It had been a month and, as Crowley maintained loudly and frequently, it had been an absolutely, absurdly poor life choice to keep forty snakes in their flat.

He had to keep maintaining it vocally because, as he was horrified to discover, the little bastards were growing on him. Or on Aziraphale, really; Crowley found it incessantly cute when his angel woke up in the morning with snakes tangled in his hair, or under his chin, or curled round his toes in that way his angel always found ticklish, giggling helplessly while Crowley did his only good deed for the day and untangled foot from reptile. It was awful, and there was absolutely no world in which he’d ever admit Aziraphale had been right about this, so Crowley had wholeheartedly embraced his role as the cranky, cool, utterly distant father— that is, when he deigned to admit at all that the snakes were children.

Aziraphale had sunk right into the role of doting dad. It was truly impossible. 

Crowley’d finally confronted Aziraphale about the changes to his perfectly ordered conservatory, and Aziraphale had - somehow - taken that argument as blatant permission to do whatever he liked. This had not been Crowley’s point at all, and he’d added curmudgeonly complaining about the state of what was now definitely a large, multi-environmental terrarium to his continuous _maintaining._ He was absolutely not impressed at the way Aziraphale had spent three days straight in the (closed) bookshop, identifying each child’s particular type of snake and preferred environment, and then blended them all to create regions within the large glass-walled structure his garden had become. Not at bloody all. It wasn’t at all charming.

He’d eventually realized it had given him an entirely new selection of plants and greenery to terrify into perfection, which had somewhat appeased the way Aziraphale’s continuous angelic miracles had caused all of his former houseplants to bloom out of season.

Crowley was stalking the terrarium now, eyeballing the snakes curled up on nearly every space and branch and rock, trying very hard not to appreciate their lovely colors and healthy, sparkling scales. He was interrogating the plantlife, harshly, as he was fairly sure it hadn’t yet reached the level of abject terror he liked to inspire.

“Oh,” breathed Aziraphale’s voice from somewhere behind him, “my boy. My beautiful boy.”

Crowley spun, immediately jealous of whatever snake had caught his angel’s eye this time, only to find Aziraphale’s adoring gaze on himself.

“What,” he barked, because it was absolutely embarrassing.

Aziraphale’s face beamed, his smile softening even more. “It’s just — you look gorgeous there, darling, with the sun in your hair and the garden all around you. It’s like Eden reborn, love.”

Crowley tried to breathe through the unnecessary tightness in his throat. Aziraphale did this sometimes - released this absolutely stunning level of love and adoration - and Crowley barely knew what to do with it, even after months and months of having lived with the angel. His initial response was always to joke it off, because it made him uncomfortable; his more genuine response was to bask in Aziraphale’s regard like a snake on a warm rock.

This time he’d paused a bit too long, because Aziraphale was approaching him, tiptoeing around Fatty and Skinny, who were sunning themselves, and Crowley felt a bit trapped, in the sort of way where the trap was everything you’d ever wanted tied up in golden string and presented to you alongside a cold glass of brandy and a dozen orgasms. The sort of trap that always, continuously, felt too good to be true, no matter how many times you’d let yourself be trapped. 

“My beautiful boy,” Aziraphale whispered again, and Crowley leaned into the kiss. 

It was all absolute rubbish, the way Aziraphale kissed him: sweet, soft, but with this intensity beneath it to remind Crowley that this was no ordinary angel: this was a warrior, bequeathed with a flaming sword, a Principality whose approach was gentle with steel beneath. It was absolutely luscious to be the focus of all of that, and it melted Crowley every single time Aziraphale kissed him this way. It often melted their clothes, as well, but that had been before they’d taken up with forty bloody snakes in the household.

Crowley chased at his angel’s bottom lip as Aziraphale pulled away, sucking deeply at it and relishing the gasp he managed to produce. 

“Absolutely beautiful boy,” Aziraphale murmured, and then pecked him again on the lips for good measure before turning to weave his way back towards the kitchen.

“Beautiful boy,” Crowley mimicked under his breath, glaring at the plants around him as a warning. The rest of him felt absolutely too warm and comfortable to be any kind of threatening, so he flicked the leaf of an aloe plant and followed Aziraphale to the teapot.

———

It had become a thing, then, because Crowley couldn’t possibly let Aziraphale think he’d won that little confrontation - even if he had gone to make them both tea and then victoriously snogged Crowley in the kitchen for half an hour - and because it gave Crowley a little thrill every time to remember that his angel had been talking to _him,_ not the snakes. Crowley was, in fact, a little jealous of his snakes, but that was okay; envy was another jolly good sin, and if it made him play things up a little more around his angel, so be it. Do a sin, get attention: it was all around a win in Crowley’s books.

“Oh look,” he said that morning as they awoke. “We’re starting off with a _sweet boy._ ” It was directed at an excessively bright mamba curled between their pillows, who raised her head and hissed curiously as Crowley stroked her with one finger. “He looks like a sweet boy.”

Aziraphale yawned - the angel had taken to sleeping with great aplomb, finding it more than tenable when approached with a naked Crowley to snuggle - and rolled his eyes. “Really, Crowley,” he said, although his smile was effortlessly fond. “Flavia’s quite toxic, you know.”

“A _sssweet boy,_ ” Crowley crooned, batting his lashes at Aziraphale to make it very obvious what he wanted. 

“Right,” Aziraphale said, rolling his eyes again. “Come here, you absolute demon.”

Crowley scooped up Flavia - who he’d affectionately named Death Trap - and bent down to kiss Aziraphale, with all of the heat and meaning he could put into it at that hour of the morning.

Later, as they made eggs: “Dirty boys,” Crowley said, gesturing at Asshole and Scurvy, twined together in the sink. “Dirty naughty boys.”

“They’re _sleeping,_ ” Aziraphale replied, a bit affronted. “I find it quite adorable, really.

“He’s a fun looking _dirty boy,_ ” Crowley insisted, picking Scurvy up. “Just a rowdy dirty boy.”

“Oh, for _heaven’s_ sake.” Aziraphale took Scurvy out of his hands and held him up to the light. “Don’t listen to him, Ramses.”

“And you,” Crowley continued, pulling Asshole out and letting the little red thing twine though his fingertips. “It’s a _beautiful_ _baby boy._ ”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said suddenly, sounding as if he’d finally cottoned on. “Is this about—”

“It’sssss about nothing, angel,” Crowley said, ducking to hide his victorious smile. “Nothing at all.”

———

It turned out that Adam, when he’d gone to fix the world right up after the Apocalypse That Hadn’t, had put in a bit of wiggle-room with regards to the other participants. To be specific, he’d put a suggestion into his mum’s head that Anathema and Newt were, in fact, distant relatives who’d happened to move in nearby; and he’d somewhat set it up so that Aziraphale and Crowley were some sort of, well, distant godparents. (The way Adam had explained it on the phone, see, was that any time his parents started to wonder how any of these other adults were related to them and their child, their thoughts would inevitably drift off: his dad to whiskey and golf; his mum to their garden and iced tea. Crowley thought it an incredibly clever bit of magic, and Aziraphale considered being angry for a few minutes before realizing it meant they could stay in touch with the Antichrist, and giving in.)

He’d done something similar, to a lesser extent, for the rest of the Them, and when Adam had let them know he’d just done it so they could all keep in touch without any pesky questions, Aziraphale had praised his loyalty and friendship and invited everyone to come visit at any time. Crowley had just blinked, and resolved to take revenge for that by undressing Aziraphale as soon as he possibly could. (It was a terrible revenge, truly pathetic, but they’d both enjoyed it.)

What this resulted in, however, was a somewhat poorly planned visit - Anathema and Newt, bringing Adam, in that horrible blue car - most of a month after Aziraphale had talked Crowley into forty household snakes.

“What are we going to _do_ with them?”

Aziraphale huffed, even as he flicked his fingers towards the kitchen, miracling away the crumbs from breakfast and the dirty mugs from Crowley’s terrible kitsch collection. “We aren’t going to _do_ anything with them. They’re our _children._ They _live here._ ”

“Right,” Crowley drawled. “The witch, the witchfinder, and the Antichrist, here, have a sit on the couch, just move the children, it’s alright.”

“It’s perfectly alright,” Aziraphale snapped, although his face melted into a slight smile, as it did any time Crowley used the word _children._ He’d learnt to use it strategically, to cancel out one of his angel’s bad moods, or to tempt Aziraphale into the kind of situation that had, well, got them forty snakes in the first place. 

(They’d learnt, since then, enough about Crowley’s snake self to ensure that sort of miracle never happened again. Forty snakes was really quite enough.)

A bell rang, the clear tone of the bell at the bookshop’s door, and Aziraphale straightened himself, fidgeting with his tie and his waistcoat. 

“You look lovely, dear,” said Crowley, licking his lips somewhat, and Aziraphale blushed that pretty blush that spread high on his cheeks and made him look cherubic.

“Well,” Aziraphale said, flicking his eyes away and then back to Crowley briefly in that way he did when he wanted to flirt but didn’t consider the situation appropriate for it. “That’s them.”

Crowley wound his way into the space they used as a sort of living room, or sitting room, or whatever proper term those chaps on the telly might call it. He started gathering the snakes up into his arms, planning to move them into the terrarium and hang a little miracle over their heads that made them think there was, suddenly, an endless supply of frozen mice. There were so many, though - they liked to congregate in the blankets on the couch, since they smelled of Crowley-and-Aziraphale together - and then Adam and Anathema and Newt and Aziraphale all tumbled into the room, laughing cheerfully, and Crowley with an entire armful of snakes. An absolute load of snakes.

“Hi,” he said. 

“Wotcher,” Newt said cheerfully, and then paused. “What have you got there?”

“Brilliant,” Adam breathed, coming closer to peer into the tangled pile.

“Snakes,” Anathema added, pinning Crowley with that analytical eye of hers, “that’s quite a lot of snakes.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale announced, all over the proud father, pleased as punch and wiggling with it. “Meet the family.”

“The family?” Newt was slowly approaching, every motion tentative in that way he had, as if he were never really sure he could touch anything without having the equivalent of an averted nuclear disaster on his hands. “Family pets, I see. Unusual, but you gents are that, I reckon.”

“Wicked.” Adam was already wrist-deep in the pile, stroking every colored back he could see, attempting to encourage one or two or a dozen to crawl up his arms. “How many are there?”

“Forty,” Aziraphale said, sighing with loving pride. “Our forty lovely children.”

“Children,” Newt echoed. Anathema continued to stare from over in the kitchen, her smart gaze probably seeing far too much, her lips pursed — not cruelly, simply in thought. Crowley could easily see her mind racing behind those eyes. She met his gaze and he shrugged, letting the motion slither the whole way down through his hips. If the witch really could see auras, she’d certainly be able to tell the way Crowley’s was stamped all over with his serpent form, wings and all. If not, Crowley didn’t much care.

Newt finally reached out, touched one; it was Ugly, who deigned to slither her way up Newt’s arm in a most charming fashion. Crowley watched Newt allow himself to be charmed. It was, surprisingly, equally charming.

“That’s Ophelia,” Aziraphale said proudly. “Lovely thing. So very precious.”

“That one’s called Rowdy Boy,” Crowley added, using a sharp gesture of his chin to designate the one now curling round Adam’s head. 

“Use their proper names, darling,” Aziraphale insisted. “That’s Paris, Adam dear.”

“Rowdy Boy,” Crowley whispered, and Adam giggled.

“You have forty snakes,” Newt said, slowly, as if he were still processing the entire concept, even with Ugly round his wrist. “Why on earth did you get forty snakes?”

“They’re our _children,_ ” Aziraphale insisted, gesturing at the pile insistently..

Adam tugged at another one and asked, knowingly. “How long did it take, then?” 

Of course the Antichrist would be able to figure it out. Crowley remembered the way Adam had looked at him - looked into both of them - as sharply as he remembered the other top ten most terrifying moments of his life. It was almost a relief, not having to explain.

“Months,” Crowley said, with a desperate sort of sigh. “Long, horrible months.” 

“Excuse me?” Anathema asked.

“Should have rung me up,” Adam said, with the wisdom of a human far past his age and the air of a child who had no idea what they were talking about. “Might have worked something out.”

“Wanted to do it the old-fashioned way,” Crowley admitted, a bit smugly, if he were to say so himself.

“Excuse me,” Anathema repeated, her voice going oddly high. 

“ _All_ of it?” Adam asked, his eyes growing wide, and now his expression was entirely a little boy-child on the verge of hearing something delightfully disgusting. This was a mood Crowley would love to encourage, peppering all of the horrifying details of—

“ _Excuse me,_ ” Anathema hollered, “are you saying that these _snakes_ came out of your - your—”

“Your _what,_ ” Adam yelled excitedly, absolutely fascinated.

“Do _not_ answer that,” Aziraphale snapped, absolutely horrified.

“Your _body?_ ” Anathema finished. Crowley locked eyes with her and noted she wasn’t necessarily upset, or horrified, or whatever: if anything, she looked downright sulky, as if suddenly mad she couldn’t birth an entire clutch of snakes herself.

“Yesssss,” Crowley hissed, and flashed her his most wicked grin. This was, despite his initial worries, turning out quite delightfully. For him, anyway. 

“We are _not_ having this discussion,” Aziraphale insisted, entering the room and pulling Adam away from Crowley, resting both hands on his shoulders as he made the kind of face that said, _not in front of the c-h-i-l-d._ “That’s — that’s terribly private, I do thank you, but that’s quite enough.”

Crowley glanced over at Newt, who seemed to be carefully trying to unwrap Ugly from his wrist with a horrified look on his face as if he’d just processed exactly where the snakes had come from but was trying desperately not to be rude.

“Miraclessss,” Crowley murmured at Newt, to get the man’s attention, and then flashed a little forked tongue at him. Newt turned the color of a particularly raw steak and started to shake his arm a little. If Ugly had been a cat, she’d have been purring; this kind of near-violent attention was right up her alley.

“ _Really,_ Newt,” Anathema said, coming to the rescue. She expertly tickled under Ugly’s chin, and the snake happily moved on from the strange angry man to the strangely delighted lady. “You know where _babies_ come from, don’t you?”

“Um,” said Newt, darkening into a well-cooked steak. “ _Um._ ”

“From _where,_ Crowley,” Adam insisted, pulling himself away from Aziraphale and coming forward to grab at more snakes with his greedy hands. 

Crowley glanced up just long enough to catch Aziraphale’s eye - he saw his angel draw a breath, preparing to yell - and said, “My mouth, Adam. Out of my mouth.”

“ _Wicked,_ ” the boy breathed, his face rapt with wonder as he apparently imagined vomiting forty snakes and _liked it_. Behind him, Aziraphale relaxed, but gave Crowley the kind of Look that said he didn’t particularly appreciate the joke. Crowley returned with a Look of his own over his sunglasses. Aziraphale blushed. 

Whatever curious objections Anathema might have initially held had all but faded as she crooned at Ugly and threw scathing looks at Newt. Crowley watched as Newt’s mouth turned up, and wondered whether this was some sort of odd love language between them. Newt Pulsifer seemed like the type who could get eaten alive by a judgmental comment and nearly immediately fall in love — in fact, that was more or less what had happened, wasn’t it?

“Forty, you said.” Adam sighed happily as Idiot Two and Idiot Three (Crowley had, much to his chagrin, gotten frustrated with the re-naming at one point) wound round his wrists. “The Them are going to be _mad_ jealous. I’m going to find them _all,_ ” announced the Antichrist, and then he was off, running into the terrarium.

“Go on, then,” Aziraphale said, sounding a little overwhelmed.

“Get absolutely riddled with these _handsome boys!_ ” Crowley called, joyously, efficiently ignoring the look Aziraphale shot at him.

“Well, I for one want to hear _all_ about this,” Anathema said, with a sly grin as she flicked her eyes to Newt and back. “What an interesting magic!”

“It’s a miracle, you know.” Crowley yawned, as if bored, and then dumped all the snakes to the floor in the direction of the terrarium. Aziraphale made a little wounded noise. “You aren’t going to be able to manage it.”

Newt made a noise that was a lot more wounded, and a lot more terrified, as his face went the color of six-day-old steak.

“No,” Anathema said, smiling sweetly, “but the principles interest me anyway.”

“I’ll just put the kettle on,” Aziraphale said, looking rather dazed. Behind him they could hear Adam yelling out numbers. Newt sort of drifted behind Aziraphale as they all moved towards the kitchen, like a little lost puppy who’d been absolutely scarred for life.

“Right,” Crowley said, turning to face Anathema fully. He eyed her up and down, letting her catch a glance of his regard over his sunglasses, and smiled in a way that had made fully-adult nuns faint as he placed a hand on one perfectly-tilted hip. “So what exactly _can_ you do, witchling? Care to give us a go?”

“ _Crowley, no_ ,” yelled two horrified voices in unison, from the direction of the kitchen.

———

“Wellll,” Crowley drawled, as he collapsed into the couch. “That went… nicely.”

Their guests had just left, after a _we-were-just-leaving_ process that had lasted for an hour and a half as Aziraphale repeatedly plucked snakes out of an entirely unapologetic Adam’s pockets, followed by Crowley having to fish three of them out from Anathema’s handbag. Each time one of them turned their backs, Adam was off fisting even more snakes into his pockets, beneath his shirt, and - one ghastly time - into his drawers. Crowley’d been tempted to let the boy head home with one or two, but Aziraphale had insistently insisted on checking. By the end of it, Newt had threatened to leave them both there, and while Adam had looked overjoyed at the prospect, Anathema had sighed and snapped her fingers. Two additional tiny snakes slipped out of her boot, and Sausage came out from under Adam’s shirt where he’d been pretending to be a pool buoy.

Aziraphale sank into the couch next to him and tipped his head back onto the cushions. He sighed heavily, rubbing his hands over his face. “That was. Well. That surely was something.”

“I had fun,” Crowley had to add, because in an odd way, he had. It had been the perfect level of chaos, really; he’d had the opportunity to make a plethora of dirty, filthy jokes, he’d been able to wind Newt up round the twist a couple of times, and he’d found a surprising friend in Anathema, who could keep up with him through most metaphysical discussions even with her respective lack of thousands of years of experience. Plus, his remaining three emotions - the ones he kept buried beneath literal yards of snark and poor body language - had enjoyed hosting _with_ Aziraphale in _their_ home, although he wasn’t admitting it any time soon.

“Of course _you_ did,” Aziraphale snapped, but there wasn’t any real heat in it.

“Oh, angel, didn’t you enjoy our guesssssts?” This was a rare opportunity, really: Aziraphale would either have to admit he’d had fun, letting Crowley win, or declare he hadn’t, which meant Crowley could put off any additional friendly visits for quite some time, also letting Crowley win.

Sadly, Aziraphale knew him well enough to turn the tables. “I enjoyed watching you enjoy yourself,” he said, sweetly. 

_That’s my bastard,_ Crowley thought, shifting closer on the couch so that Aziraphale could tip his head onto Crowley’s shoulder.

“We’ll have to have the Them out at some point, you know,” Aziraphale continued, ignoring the suddenly panicked noise Crowley made under him in favor of wiggling himself around so that Crowley would put an arm around him. “Adam will absolutely have it out if we don’t.”

“Remind me to go on vacation that week,” Crowley said, adjusting himself around the warm solid weight of his angel, running his fingers idly up and down the angel’s arm. 

“You’re as much trouble as a child,” Aziraphale said fondly, “I just might do.”

Crowley startled as something brushed his knee; he glanced down to see Ham and Skinny, tentatively nudging at his trousers as if asking permission to come up for a cuddle. “Oh, do fuck off,” he said to them, and Aziraphale tutted.

“Nonsense,” his angel said, waggling his fingers at them. This appeared to be a previously-established invitation of some sort, as Crowley felt both snakes grip onto his trouser leg and slither their way on up, crossing over his lap to rub their heads against Aziraphale’s hand.

“Oi,” said Crowley. “What am I, a stepping stone?”

Aziraphale made a smug little humming noise and said, “You aren’t always _nice_ to them, Crowley.”

“Okay, angel.” Crowley shifted again, in an attempt to mask the fact that he was pulling Aziraphale even closer. “Which one of us is an expert in snakes?”

“You don’t even know what _kinds_ they are,” Aziraphale said, sounding offended.

Crowley chose to ignore this comment. “Which one of us is an expert in being a snake?”

“You eat chocolate ice cream,” Aziraphale pointed out. “In snake form.”

Again, Crowley chose to ignore that statement, since it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Which one of us is responsible for them being snakes in the _first place?_ ”

“It isn’t _my_ fault they prefer me,” Aziraphale replied, and gave another smug little hum.

“Oh, get off,” Crowley retorted, tightening his arm around his angel to make it clear he should do nothing of the sort.

“Why don’t we discuss the sunroom,” Aziraphale began.

“ _What sunroom._ ”

“Oh,” said his angel, “I’ve been planning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get riddled with these handsome boys [right here](https://youtu.be/Q72aCtiDVHQ) (https://youtu.be/Q72aCtiDVHQ)
> 
> i blame aw-writing-no for most of this  
> i blame that goddamn discord for some of it  
> i blame myself for existing
> 
> bye


	3. they. like us. fine i guess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley has a few too many feelings, and this fic earns its explicit rating.

Crowley had been involved in the development of social media, but only to a point. It had been a human idea at first, but he’d been the one pushing the exclusivity, the capitalist competitiveness, and most of all, the advertising. He knew at some point both Heaven and Hell had simply washed their hands of the entire experience, but at that point Crowley had some well-established accounts, which he still kept up with as much as he can.

He enjoyed it as a way to get a whole bunch of sins taken care of at once, without being incorrigibly direct. Vanity? _Selfies._ Envy? _Facebook baby posts._ Lust? _Tindr._ Sloth? _Spending four hours a day on Tumblr._ He encouraged it as well as he could. He also had three Instagram accounts under different personas, multiple Twitters, one fairly cursed Tumblr login, and a bunch of accounts on Grindr he used to troll child predators. (In typical fashion, Crowley himself had become a little addicted with his social media - especially the account where he posted his best plant photos - being, once again, inconvenienced by his own work. But it was so much _fun_ getting into Facebook fights and making people post horrible things under their real name, which could then be screenshotted and sent to their bosses, to add a bit of chaos into the mix.)

Crowley actually managed to be surprised that Aziraphale kept an Instagram, since Aziraphale routinely mistook his answering machine for Crowley having a bad day, but he stopped being surprised the second he saw Aziraphale’s material.

“What on earth are you posting photos of the snakes for?” Crowley asked Aziraphale, later that evening. They were all tucked up on the couch, Aziraphale propped in one corner with a book, Crowley sprawled over the rest of it with his toes beneath Aziraphale’s thigh. For once, there weren’t any snakes in the cuddle; Crowley would never admit to having threatened them, but he was in fact hoping to turn this cuddle into the kind involving nakedness, and Aziraphale seemed distracted enough by his novel to - hopefully - not notice anything until it was far too late.

“People _like_ them,” Aziraphale replied, with that little wiggle of his shoulders that meant he was quite proud. “The other day, I had three hundred and forty-nine likes on a picture of Cyra, you know.”

“Oh, Biscuit,” Crowley said a little nastily, thinking of his own Instagram accounts, all with millions of followers who _seethed_ over his artsy black-and-white pics. “Yes, she’d really only get a few, that makes sense.”

“ _Cyra,”_ Aziraphale said, properly emphasizing the name, “is _lovely._ And three hundred and forty-nine people agree with me.”

Crowley abruptly realized he needed to change the topic, else Aziraphale would go searching for fucking Biscuit and any change of a snake-free snuggle would be lost. “Just didn’t know you had an Instagram, is all,” he said, wriggling his feet farther under Aziraphale’s thigh. “Didn’t know you had it in you, angel.”

Aziraphale preened. “I went to a _shop_ last week,” he began, his eyes widening at the blasphemy of it all. “Told a lady I wanted to show off pictures of my _children._ I think you were off doing that thing with the violinist. She showed me how to get everything set up. Quite delightful, really.”

“Did you tell her the children are snakes?” Crowley decided it was time, and pulled his feet out to stretch them over Aziraphale’s lap. He managed to do so without _completely_ upsetting Aziraphale’s book, but since this was a real cry for attention, he figured he’d upset it _just enough._

“I know what you’re doing, Crowley,” said Aziraphale, fondly. He reached into the air to pluck a bookmark from it, like one of his awful magic tricks, and settled it into his page. He carefully closed the book and set it on the end table, and then finally turned to look down at Crowley, who had adjusted his sprawl to be as _come-hither_ as possible.

The thing was - the thing was. The thing, see, was that having somewhat unexpectedly become parents to forty different ordinary snake children had resulted in a detrimental effect on Crowley’s physical love life. The thing was: Crowley needed touch, he needed Aziraphale in ways he didn’t even really understand; the thing was, even though it had been Aziraphale who’d gotten him - them - into this particular arrangement, Crowley still _needed_ to feel the angel inside of him, with a yearning desperation he looked at with a detached sense of horror.

The thing was, Crowley had _pined_ for Aziraphale for _so long_ that it had become a habit, and that habit - once Aziraphale was finally, finally his to have - had transmuted itself from a desperate longing into a desperate need to be fucked heavensward.

The thing was that private time was awful to come by when you live with forty snakes.

The thing was: Crowley was an unbelievably pathetic addict who needed a fix, and the only fix that existed was sitting on the couch with him, one palm curled around Crowley’s ankle, his thumb gently tracing a line over the knob of bone.

 _“Angel,”_ Crowley said, hoping he didn’t have to say anymore, because all of this had choked up in his throat and it was going to emerge in some terribly embarrassing way if he had to say anything else. 

It wasn’t jealousy - although envy was a great sin, really, _god_ it hurt - it wasn’t jealousy over snakes. Because Crowley refused to be jealous of snakes. He was _the snake,_ the _original_ , and all snakes around the world were all his children and therefore inferior. He wasn’t jealous. That would be stupid.

Aziraphale’s thumb hadn’t stopped its slow movement and Crowley felt goosebumps, that tentative shiver that settles at the base of the spine. His angel’s eyes were on him, that particular gaze that had a hint of a challenge behind it: Aziraphale wanted something. _Oh._

He wanted Crowley to ask. He wanted Crowley to remember that he was _allowed_ to ask, now, that he was _encouraged_ to ask, as if he didn’t spend nearly all of his existence orbiting Aziraphale, waiting for him to have a need that Crowley could fill. Aziraphale wanted Crowley to acknowledge it, to tell Aziraphale without words that he knew his regard was returned, a million times over, that they were together now on their own side and the door was always, forever, ineffably thrown wide open for anything Crowley might want.

Aziraphale was a bit of a bastard, and he liked hearing Crowley ask.

Hell, did Crowley love him. He could ask for anything, he knew now, and have it.

Except that for whatever reason, Crowley’s body had decided to react to Aziraphale’s hot stare, to the weight of the look in his eyes as he waited, expectant, knowing that Crowley would be happy to do whatever Aziraphale wanted, without question, for the future history of the entire universe. His body was warm, and tight with something he recognized as arousal, and it was so surprising how it just dropped into this state sometimes when he’d done nothing but look at Aziraphale. (Crowley’s human body was, at best, an agglomeration of limbs with one very confused organ inside taking care of all of his functions, but the bodies were meant to be as human as possible. And since Crowley just expected it all to work right, it normally did.)

But now Crowley’s body was flushing up with heat, and that dark desperate want was crawling up his throat, and it was _embarrassing_ how turned on he’d become just from Aziraphale’s thumb on the inside of his ankle. “Aziraphale,” Crowley managed to get out around whatever felt like sawdust in his mouth. “I _want_ you.”

He watched Aziraphale’s eyes go dark with that particular expression to his mouth, the way Aziraphale’s entire posture changed when he got like this: so eager, but not in the messy way like Crowley; in Aziraphale’s own way, this careful deliberate set of steps he would take to get Crowley completely unraveled.

“Tell me, darling,” Aziraphale crooned, sliding his hand up Crowley’s calf, settling at his knee. Crowley could feel the warmth through his denim. “Tell me what you want, and I’ll make sure it happens to you.”

Crowley’s cock gave a very obvious twitch at that and Crowley forgot to breathe for a couple seconds. (They mostly left their cocks on all the time, these days, or at least _some_ kind of Effort— it had seemed to make sense once they realized all of the things their nearly-human bodies could do with each other. The Efforts were fun to play around with in different combinations, but cocks were the most obvious, which suited Crowley occasionally.)

“Hmm,” Aziraphale hummed, obviously having noticed the sudden tightness of Crowley’s jeans. 

Crowley swallowed, and then slinked himself upwards slowly until he was sitting upright, his face leaning in to Aziraphale’s, his hand coming up to Aziraphale’s face. Normally he would try to be cool, try to flirt a little, try to give it a little back-and-forth, but Crowley was suddenly so desperately needy for Aziraphale’s attention that he just, well, gave up. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered where Aziraphale was doing this, deliberately, intensifying Crowley’s need, but then some other piece of his mind pointed out that Aziraphale didn’t have to intensify anything, that all of this yearning want was already available in deep, shuddering doses whenever Crowley looked a little too hard.

“You,” he said. “Angel, I want you, and your hands, and your body on me. Our bedroom, no snakes, nothing but _ussss._ ” _I want you to fuck me,_ he thought. _I want you to tear me open and put me back together again._

Aziraphale’s smile widened, softened, full of that grace and fondness he carried around inside. It was so incredibly sweet that it _hurt_ to look at, an ache building in Crowley’s chest, where his body probably had some kind of a heart.

“Very well then,” said Aziraphale, and he reached out for Crowley and snapped his fingers. 

They arrived in bed, their clothes having vanished somewhere (likely the wardrobe; Aziraphale’s sex-related miracles were always very specific) in the split second between couch and bedroom, and Crowley made the kind of embarrassing noise he always tried to regret and pulled Aziraphale closer on top of him, close enough to kiss.

Aziraphale’s mouth descended on his like prophecy, like there was never going to be anything in the world that mattered more than this moment, right now. When Aziraphale was concentrating on something - book, tapestry, cake, Crowley - that thing was the recipient of all of his millennia of focus. That thing absorbed every last bit of Aziraphale’s angelic attention, and woe be it if the thing was incapable of handling that level of deepest, most holy devotion. 

Crowley had given up to it long ago.

Now he just tried to hang on, tried to put the way he felt into every movement of his mouth, every stroke of his tongue; he was clinging around Aziraphale’s neck, and Aziraphale had one hand in Crowley’s hair, tilting his head just right so that Aziraphale could breathe the world right down Crowley’s throat and into the gaping, gasping hole in his chest. 

Aziraphale pulled back, tugged harder, and brought his mouth down to Crowley’s jaw, licking at the stubble there and sucking a bright pinpoint into the side of his neck. Crowley was incredibly sensitive there - some snake thing, he assumed - and he could do nothing but arch his body into Aziraphale’s, trying desperately for more contact. Aziraphale licked at the soft skin where chin joined neck, and Crowley shuddered underneath the onslaught.

“What do you want?” Aziraphale murmured into his ear. Crowley’d got one hand into Aziraphale’s pale curls and his fingers were instinctively rubbing soft patterns into his angel’s scalp. Aziraphale sucked at the skin beneath Crowley’s ear, and then added, “Just tell me, love. Tell me what you want and let me give it to you, let me do everything you want, you ridiculous perfect creature,” and Crowley could have just rubbed off on Aziraphale’s thigh to the sound of his voice and the thrilling trace of his tongue down the tendon of Crowley’s neck. 

After a long moment Crowley caught his breath enough to push up, to spatter kisses along Aziraphale’s smooth jaw, his silky skin, the length of his collarbone a sight Crowley only got to see when they were like this, which was a _sin,_ an absolute demonic temptation, the worst either of them had ever done. “Inside me, angel,” he hissed, and felt Aziraphale’s reaction all the way down their bodies, in every place their skin could touch. “Give me that.” 

“Oh, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and it had too much in it: years of devotion and denial, weighted with a disastrous fondness, and how was it still like this, every time, even when they’d had these sorts of human delights over and over dozens and dozens and a millennia’s worth of times? How was it still so intricate, pulling out all the longing that had pooled in Crowley’s chest cavity like a black hole, like a dying star, nebulas being reborn every time they kissed? How the fuck did he end up losing his hell-forsaken mind every single time, as if he’d never even existed before this?

Aziraphale was working his way down Crowley’s body with the single-minded devotion of a man at his last meal. His lips and teeth worked at Crowley’s skin, left marks that Aziraphale knew Crowley allowed because they both liked them, liked seeing the trail of Aziraphale’s holy tongue down the smoldering path of Crowley’s pale skin. Aziraphale bit at his hipbones like he did every time, and Crowley’s cock bobbed, faint brushes against Aziraphale’s hair and shoulders hitting him like lightning bolts. 

Then Aziraphale licked a stripe up the underside of his cock and Crowley had to shut his eyes against the sound he was making, this hissing sort of moan and his body just wanted _more,_ this stupid human body and the way it felt so intensely, intimately _good._ Aziraphale’s hands were at the juts of his hipbones because Aziraphale loved those, their angles, the way they framed the space between Crowley’s legs where he liked to linger. Aziraphale preferred to deliver his miracles with his mouth.

Crowley let his legs roll up, following the momentum, and Aziraphale’s tongue licked a scorching trail from the base of his cock to the tender skin behind his balls, and then Aziraphale licked at his hole and Crowley _whined_ because his angel did this so well, like an instinct, gentle careful licks that miraculously carried themselves onward until Crowley was slick, and open, and couldn’t breathe with the way he needed Aziraphale back up near his face, near his heart, so Crowley could tell him everything he needed to with his lips and his tongue. 

Aziraphale climbed back up Crowley’s body like the warmest blanket ever, full of electricity, letting all of his soft plush skin drag against Crowley’s angles and ribs, slowly, until he came to rest with his face in Crowley’s neck, breathing hard into his skin. 

“Aziraphale?” Crowley tried to summon his own concentration, his own concern, because Aziraphale was panting into his neck and was something wrong? 

But then Aziraphale lifted his face and shook Crowley to the core, his eyes bled dark and white, faintly shining with light; his mouth open, gasping, his expression wrecked. Hell, he looked like Crowley felt, absolutely ruined with feeling, and Crowley pressed soft kisses onto his lips until Aziraphale said, all in one gasp, “I just had to catch my breath, my dear, you’re so beautiful it kills me sometimes.”

Crowley melted then, and pulled with his limbs and his lips until Aziraphale was lined up, and between his hands and his hips his body convinced Aziraphale to sink down into him, slowly, the sensation of being filled tilting Crowley’s head back into the pillow, one hand at the back of Aziraphale’s head as he cradled the angel against his chest, until his cock was seated deep inside Crowley.

At this point their edges were beginning to blend together, the familiar buzzing of static as angelic and demonic essence sparked off of each other. Crowley let loose some kind of howling hiss as Aziraphale began to move, rocking inside him, pulling back and pressing in, relentlessly, the press and pull like a tide. Crowley wrapped his legs around Aziraphale’s hips and kissed him desperately, frantically, as he was filled, over, again and again, millenia of wanting and waiting shooting molten heat up his spine; pleasure spiking in his brain, _hell, fuck, God and Satan both_ as Aziraphale moved, steady and relentless like an angelic tide, every thrust hammering away at all of Crowley’s sweet spots until he thought he might unravel.

Crowley wondered, distantly, if he was weeping: it seemed like nothing could ever be as good as this.

“My love,” Aziraphale murmured in his ear, and Crowley shook with it. “Crowley, heavens, you lovely creature, I adore you so, I—”

Crowley came between them, untouched by anything other than their own two skins, these human skins they wore; touched only by Aziraphale’s words and the heat of the love he could feel pouring out of them. His eyes wrenched shut, nothing but bright light behind them, as his entire body tensed up and released, _fuck,_ the absolute pinnacle of pleasure hitting him over and over as he spurted between their bellies.

Millenia passed and Crowley opened his eyes. Aziraphale was watching him, the tenderness on his face so hungry it looked raw. Crowley could feel him inside, only moving in slow gentle circles, still so hard and so hot and he was so full, full of pleasure and love and lust and far too much for any one demon to ever deal with. 

“My dear,” Aziraphale said, licking a trail up Crowley’s jawline. “You look utterly shattered. I think,” and he pulled almost entirely out of Crowley only to slam back inside with a force that had Crowley gasping, oversensitive and overwrought. “I think I’ll need to see that again. And then maybe a third time. You truly are a masterpiece.”

Aziraphale was easily capable of making good on the threat: Aziraphale, with his angelic will and his blanketing love, Aziraphale with more patience than all of the saints, Aziraphale who loved him. Crowley whimpered, pressed his lips to Aziraphale’s face, and closed his eyes again.

———

Later - hours later, days later, did it even matter - Crowley was sprawled out on his side, weak and shivering with the aftermath of four absolutely excruciatingly powerful demonic orgasms and one overwhelmingly dazzling angelic finish, and he thought maybe he’d never move again and he’d be perfectly okay with it, needing nothing but Aziraphale’s fingers in his hair.

“I’m sorry, my love,” said Aziraphale.

Crowley swore, because his body was far too languid to move, to roll over and look at Aziraphale. “F’r wha?” He asked, because his brain was far too fucked-out to form proper syllables. His _mouth_ wasn’t even working. What was a tongue? Crowley had no idea.

Aziraphale’s fingers ran up through Crowley’s hair, then down to trace the nape of his neck. Crowley shuddered, a little bit, because it felt _so good_ to just be stroked, to be touched, to be petted like an animal, like a treasured thing. 

“I should have noticed,” Aziraphale said, all the kindness in the world in his voice, “that you were wanting some attention.”

“I’ssss not,” Crowley insisted, because it absolutely had been, but it was one thing for him to (sort-of, vaguely) tempt Aziraphale into blisteringly hot sex and _quite another_ for Aziraphale to see him, well, _needing._ Needing _anything._

“It’s quite alright,” Aziraphale continued. “I hadn’t realized I was, well, _missing you_ either.”

The thing was —

The point is — 

the thing _was_ that Crowley could, in fact, deal with a certain number of emotional feelings all at once - he’d been dealing with them for six thousand years, already - but in cases like these, where his heart (his metaphysical heart, although Crowley was vaguely sure that some portion of his poor confused innards performed the duty of a human heart _just fine_ ) just clenched up and seemed to fill the entire space of his body, when everything he was feeling was so pure it hurt, he tended to go a little bit, well, _native._

“I should be taking better care of you, love,” Aziraphale murmured, hands on Crowley’s scalp and the tender care of it all too much, overwhelmingly raw as Crowley still was, and the thought of being the subject of _more_ of this care and attention and adoration and love was all too much for Crowley to even process, what with his brain turned into orgasm spaghetti and his chest cavity feeling like it would overflow — 

Crowley snaked out.

———

The world’s in soothing, ssssoothing shades again, blues and greens and cream-yellow and heat, the blisssstering sense of warmth allll down his scalesssss, and someone’s stroking along the pattern of his belly and this is all very, very, nicccccce.

Words are happening. Vibrations on his skin, like the words touch him all over; Crowley leans a little more into the demonic, and hears them as well as feels them.

“You are so very lovely like this. And I’m sure that was all a little overwhelming. I’m truly sorry to have overwhelmed you, but I’m also not, and I’m quite fond of you no matter what form you’re in.”

 _Not overwhelmed anymore,_ Crowley hisses, and twines a bit around the bright source of heat he knows is his angel - hissss angel - before slithering off of the bed. 

His flat’s designed in human colors. If he pushes Crowley can see them but he’d rather not push anything else right now; he just wants the ssssoothing simplicity of the smell of the air and a warm rock to curl up on while his mind focuses on being long and entwined and scaly with nothing else happening.

Crowley slithers on down the hall to the open sunlight of the terrarium and ssssuddenly finds himself the target of forty sets of snaky eyes.

Oh, that’s right, he thinks. Haven’t bothered to be a snake since the whole thing ...happened.

 _Sssshut up,_ he hisses, and he can feel them all: forty snakes, forty brethren, forty children. Some are intrigued; some haven’t yet smelt the air and think he’s some sort of threat; some just turn back to their sunning or eating or gentle stalking of shadows. 

Crowley buries Crowley again. The snake moves forward, tongue touching the scentsss of the terrarium, learning all of the different air-tastes of the children. They’re ...content. They’re happy, as far as snakess go. 

A couple approach him, and the snake flicks his tongue out at each of them; they have human names, word names, but here their scents are identification and his snake-brain stores them as snake-words, all drawn out and only pronounceable by a forked tongue. 

They recognize him. They… they know him. 

They’re just snakes, Crowley thinks, surfacing once again in his own snake-head (he isn’t particularly good at being a demon _or_ a snake, really); the concept of having a parent who also becomes a large (beautifully stunning) snake shouldn’t even be able to register. Snakes don’t even know their fucking parents. 

But it does. One of the snakes hisses something out to him, a ssssnakyword Crowley recognizes as a name, _his name,_ and there’s something like — like a fondness, a happiness, a greeting.

Maybe it’s the living, Crowley thinks, the way the snakes are surrounded by miracles every day; maybe they’ve ended up picking some of that up. Or maybe it’s a happy coincidence. He tries to fade out again, lets the snake hiss their own names back at them, tongue flickering happily.

The long pale dark one hisses out something that sounds like Aziraphale’s scent, a drawn-out _sssSSSSSssssssssss_ , and Crowley gestures with his tail towards the bedroom, where Aziraphale is probably still happily reading.

A few of them filter off that way. The snake spotsss a nice warm rock with plenty of space available, and slithers on up, curling into the thick loopsss of himssself, coiled and entwined.

He feelssss a couple of the other sssnakes approach, and they curl around him, wrap around him, feeding themsssselves through his coilsss like lace, and the brush of their scales on his is full of contentment.

They like me, Crowley thinks. They _like_ us.

Then the sssnake shutsss its eyes and buries its demonic namesake in the bliss of sssimple animal sslumber.

———

“My dear,” said Aziraphale’s voice softly. “My dear, it’s quite time to wake up.”

Crowley opened his eyes. Human colors: the pale blond hair, those gleamingly blue eyes, red lips smiling at him.

“Sorry, angel,” he said, stretching out across the bed. Crowley vaguely remembered Aziraphale scooping him up, children and all, and carrying him back into the bedroom; why, he had no idea, but it didn’t really matter. “How long’ve I been out?”

“Not nearly a day,” Aziraphale informed him. His smile was fond, and a little apologetic. “I’m just a bit peckish, is all, and I remembered you’d mentioned a little Greek place you’d found while you were out doing the…”

“The thing with the violinist,” Crowley said, nodding. “Yeah, looked new, smelled good, I think they have wine.”

“Sounds perfect,” said Aziraphale, wriggling a little bit in that satisfied way he had when plans came into fruition. “If you’re ready to go, that is.”

Crowley was, in fact, fully naked except for Death From Above, who he’d found curled up in his collarbone. He gently slid the snake down into the covers, and then rolled himself out of bed. He summoned his clothing with a snap of his fingers, winked at Aziraphale, and grabbed his sunglasses. 

“Shall we?” 

“Quite,” said his angel, beaming at him.

They stopped in the kitchen to pick up the keys to the Bentley (which didn’t need keys at this point, but Crowley enjoyed having them in his hand, like a charm of some sort), and Aziraphale stopped to pet seven of the snakes, two of them charmingly curling up his arm like a question. He looked at Crowley hopefully. 

“No, absolutely not,” Crowley said. “Worm and Goblin are both _staying here._ ”

Aziraphale sniffed primly. “Then _you_ need to leave Mahala here as well.”

Crowley stared at the angel for a long second, and then reluctantly removed Death From Above from round his neck, where the snake had been imitating a particularly realistic necklace.

“Its _name_ is Death From Above, Aziraphale. I thought you’d at least like that one.”

Aziraphale simply rolled his eyes and tugged at his waistcoat. 

“You know,” Crowley said suddenly, awkwardly, because he felt like he should say something but didn’t really want to, “before, when I was all—” Here he made a gesture that might have looked somewhat like a snake after six glasses of excellent brandy and a spell of lying facefirst on the floor. 

“When you were all curled up, yes.” Aziraphale was smiling at him: a small, soft smile this time, the sort that temporarily nestled behind Crowley’s teeth and made him wonder how he’d ever gotten this lucky. 

“Yes, well. The snakes,” he began, and found he couldn’t quite say it. _They’re happy,_ he thinks. _They like it here. They like us. You’d like to know how fond they are of you. They have a word for you, a name, but in this state I’d have to do somersaults with my tongue to speak it to you. They _like _us._

“Well,” Crowley stammered out after an expectant pause. “They’re alright, really.”

Aziraphale’s smile widened, and Crowley figured that - like always happened - Aziraphale knew what he was really saying, anyway.

“C’mon,” he said, putting a little bit more annoyance in his voice, because they were going out into public and this was all just getting to be too much. “Those papia moussaka aren’t about to eat themselves.”

Aziraphale made a little noise, pleased as punch, and Crowley opened the door that led the way out the building and held it for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> too many fucking discords to ~~blame~~ thank: BDBD, tickety boo, yall feral motherfuckers encouraging this. im not looking at you sin bin. we arent talking about that 
> 
> next chapter we return to the snamily; Aziraphale gets a surprise visit!


	4. making snakes since eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Visitors arrive, and visitors leave. Crowley absolutely does not have emotions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY ALL -- I know it's been like a month since this updated, but there's more! I've been working to clear out other commissioned fic, but hopefully I'll be able to post more regularly going forward.

Crowley didn’t want to say he was getting used to having the snakes around, so he didn’t.

It wasn’t like forty snakes were _easy_ to live with, or that one _ever_ was allowed to forget for a few moments that their pristine flat had been absolutely taken over by two-score _Serpentes._ It wasn’t like they didn’t require attention, and care, even if that care could be easily managed in the form of miracles; it wasn’t like they’d suddenly become a fundamental part of life in the apartment. Crowley didn’t want to say it, so he didn’t bother.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, was announcing it over and over with the smug joy only a bastard of an angel could put out. Which was funny, because in his case it wasn’t necessarily true: Aziraphale wasn’t at _all_ used to having the snakes around, based on the way he still squealed and cooed every time he saw _any one of them._ What Aziraphale was, really, wasn’t settled; he was overjoyed. Crowley was, well, getting used to it.

He hated how happy it made him when Aziraphale came up to buss a kiss against his cheek with snakes in his hair and round his neck; he hated how adorable it was when one of the snakes would flicker out a tongue against his cheek, to taste. These were things any self-respecting demon would _never_ acknowledge, so in true and usual form, Crowley just… didn’t.

He thought Aziraphale might have figured it out, with the way he would look over at Crowley with half-lidded eyes and that beaming smile on his face — but Aziraphale was a bastard angel, and his opinion was not to be acknowledged.

“No,” he said again to his mobile screen, “I will absolutely not miracle you a dozen snakes.”

“How about three?” Pepper asked. The Them had commandeered Brian’s mum’s mobile, and used it to make a video call in Crowley’s general direction. He’d hoped to pass it off to the angel, but Aziraphale was humming around in the bookshop, three snakes entwined in his hair and the most blissful expression on his face as he carefully set up a display on books from the 1700s that he’d never let anyone look at, let alone touch. Crowley had looked, sickened himself with the way his heart flipped over at Aziraphale’s pleased demeanor, and left his angel alone.

“I’m not,” Crowley repeated for the tenth time. “I’m not making you _any_ snakes, get it?” 

“Look, Crowley,” Adam said, with the kind of grin that Crowley was exceptionally weak to - not that Adam knew that - and a sigh. “It’s nearly Wensleydale’s birthday, see, and he wants a snake or two.”

“Actually,” the boy piped up from behind Brian’s head, which took up at least half of the screen, “I’m not sure I do.”

“Sssseee?” Crowley hissed. “No need for miracle snakes.”

“Shame I can’t do them anymore,” Adam said, frowning.

“You can’t just tell us what to do anymore,” Wensley piped up, “except when it’s your job.”

“It’s always my job,” said Adam, with the authority of a child who knew they were always right. “So maybe _I_ want a snake for Wensleydale’s birthday. That’s completely fair.”

“You,” said Crowley, “are utterly full of shit.”

The Them giggled. They seemed endlessly amused every time Crowley swore at them, probably because they were treated as children all of the time, except for when they talked to Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley, of course, took that as an invitation to do it as often as he could.

“Look,” Crowley continued. “As much as I’d like to pack up the buggers—” _more giggling ensued_ “—and dump them in the nearest field, Aziraphale’s not having it, so _you’re_ going to have to find your own bloody snakes if you want them.”

“We don’t want normal snakes,” said Brian, “we want one of yours.”

“Can’t you just,” Adam began, and the smirk building around his mouth was that of an adult who had seen so much shit they felt compelled to always hand it out to others, “ _have_ some more?”

“Adam Young, you’re going to hell,” Crowley stated firmly, and hung up on the giggling pack.

———

It was the middle of the week - a Wednesday, Crowley thought - when he had the fourteen consecutive heart attacks over his angel.

The day started normally. Aziraphale had been awake first - the usual; he wasn’t as adept at sleeping as Crowley himself - and had spent his time petting and slowly removing all the snakes from their bed. He’d then proceeded to wake Crowley up with his tongue, tracing from the nape of his neck down his spine and right into the slow soft miracles that opened him up and made him ready. Having enthusiastically given Aziraphale permanent consent for this sort of thing, Crowley had groggily been brought to two absolutely wicked orgasms by Aziraphale’s hand while the angel slowly rocked Crowley into the mattress. Aziraphale had then come twice himself, making quite a mess in, on, and around Crowley’s arse, and they’d quite enjoyed a couple rounds of devastatingly lovely kissing after that. This was maybe not the _typical_ Wednesday morning, but it was close enough to be kissing cousins with _normal_ that Crowley felt confident in thinking it, after he’d gotten his brain to reassemble from the absolute orgasm jelly Aziraphale had made of it.

(This had been the first three heart attacks, two during the sex and one during the kissing. Crowley, still ignorant as to how his internal organ was supposed to work, often confused the symptoms of love with heart disease.)

They’d then had breakfast, toast and eggs, and Crowley had growled until his fancy espresso machine made him a pumpkin spice latte; Aziraphale had tea, and had trotted down to the bookshop with Worm and Goblin round his neck, both of them tugging at the bow tie.

Crowley had waited until they were all gone, and then took a moment to breathe out the absolutely _stupidly_ love-sick sigh he’d been holding in all morning.

There. That was much better. 

Connecting the bookshop to his flat meant that Crowley’s own supernatural wards had mingled with those of Aziraphale’s shop to make something… new. It was a network combining both of their powers, and Crowley had never wanted to look at it closely, for fear that it would stop doing what he _thought_ it did and start doing something else entirely. And since what he _thought_ it did was announce the presence of any incoming occult or ethereal beings in a way that prevented them from doing any harm whatsoever to Crowley, Aziraphale, the shop, the flat, the books, the snakes, any humans who might be in or around the place, and pretty much anything ever, Crowley really didn’t want to end up accidentally convincing himself that it wasn’t actually possible to do any of that.

Which was a good thing, because this particular Wednesday, there was an annoyingly loud knock at the door, and -- just as Crowley had expected it to behave, whatever ward was at the door lit up in an ethereal warning he could _feel_ all the way from his kitchen in his flat miles away.

“Shit!” Crowley yelled out loud, startling Ham and Sausage away from the crossword they’d been trying to complete as he flung himself out of the chair and towards his front closet, hauling the door open only to hear Aziraphale’s pleasant voice say, a little unpleasantly, “Well, isn’t this a _surprise._ Come in, I _guess._ ”

And Gabriel, the utter fucking wanker that he was, walked _right through the door_ with that other ugly ass angel on his tale, thanking Aziraphale profusely in a voice that sounded equally fake.

Crowley froze at the top of the stairs downward into the bookshop. First, he wasn’t sure whether putting in an appearance would bode better or worse for Aziraphale -- he knew his angel could certainly protect himself, and since he was currently quite desperately insisting under his breath that the warding around their combined home made Gabriel and the other one powerless, he could be assured of Aziraphale’s general safety, sure, but what the fuck were they _doing_ here? Second, he couldn’t remember the second angel’s name, and it bothered him. Third, what the fuck were they doing here? And continuing the first thought, Crowley wasn’t exactly sure whether Aziraphale wanted Heaven to know Crowley was anywhere nearby, and it would be somewhat embarrassing if he were to stumble down all these stairs only to be ignored.

(Crowley’s brain, as much as it had segregated itself from the single confusing organ that made up most of Crowley’s innards, occasionally liked to remind him that it was supposed to be running the shots. Crowley usually ignored it, having learnt to think in a circular, snakelike fashion aeons ago. It was also confused by what felt like a dozen heart attacks.)

“Well,” Aziraphale said. Crowley watched as his angel did the little wiggle he did when he straightened his waistcoat and bowtie, usually right before he faced down some unpleasant situation — accurate. “Why on _earth_ are you here?”

Crowley was able to see through a small gap in the railing. He was currently standing in the most complicated spot - the actual boundary between his flat in Mayfair and the bookshop in Soho - at the top of the spiral staircase that led downwards from the second floor of the bookshop (which had been meant as an attached flat, but had turned into additional storage for Aziraphale’s books, trinkets, and wine collection). Half of Crowley was, technically, miles away from the other, but since Crowley had emphatically decided not to care, his body didn’t either. He hunched down on the top step, determined to watch silently unless he had to intervene.

Idiot #2 slid out from the shadows and tied itself around Crowley’s ankle.

Below, he watched as Gabriel and the other stupid angel awkwardly floated around the bookshop for a bit, fingers alighting briefly on things like dragonflies. Gabriel cleared his throat, and the other angel followed suit, as if this was a human thing they both felt required to do.

“We’re on a bit of a break,” Gabriel said eventually, through that stupid beaming smile he had used when Crowley was in Aziraphale’s body. “Attentions have been, well, reprioritized.”

“It’s a bit of a furlough,” the other angel drawled, his voice thick and stupid.

“Hm,” said Aziraphale. Crowley recognized the smug note in his angel’s voice, and absently stroked the scales of Idiot #2’s head. “So, you’ve been demoted?”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it that,” said Gabriel, at the same time that the ugly fucker said, “That’s what the Almighty called it, yes.”

Crowley stifled a snort as Gabriel and the other one glared at each other briefly. Aziraphale had this look on his face like he was trying to stuff down a smile. A couple of the snakes were working their way down the spiral staircase, wrapping around the wrought cast iron railing and its curving details. 

“Do tell,” Aziraphale said finally, once he’d proclaimed victory over his own facial expression. “And do tell how this involves me, Gabriel. I thought I had been _very clear._ ”

 _Fuck,_ but Crowley really appreciated watching Aziraphale - seemingly stuffy, prim, preoccupied Aziraphale - pulling out the bronze echo of his entire Principality, of the world he had been given, and bringing it to bear against — well, anyone. Crowley had experienced his most embarrassing boner about twenty years ago at a time where he’d parked in a creative spot, which someone had argued, and Aziraphale had made it his business to simply destroy the challenger with nothing but his mind and his words. It had maybe awakened something in Crowley, some kind of competence kink he hadn’t been aware of until he’d watched his angel - his angel, who projected nothing but fussy weak particularity - verbally eviscerating someone who’d done nothing aggressively offensive but whose microaggressions had been incredibly awful. 

At the moment, Crowley resolved to remember absolutely none of this; he would just continue watching, and he’d only interfere if Aziraphale was in some kind of danger. Archangels were dangerous. This was no time for inappropriate boners, even though he had one.

“Well!” Gabriel began. It was really ridiculous, because Crowley with his vantage point could read all of the expressions on Gabriel’s stupid face. He obviously had no idea how to actually pass as a human. Occult and ethereal creatures were _strong,_ and a lot of their powers came from _emotions,_ and it took a long bit of skill and training to be able to pull off a blank face. Gabriel had neither; his expression looked like it had just been run over by the Bentley. Crowley found this entirely satisfactory.

“Go ahead,” said Aziraphale. It was laced with a bit of power, which Crowley kind of wanted to ride on for the next three hours. He had no way to express any of it, but he still got a nearly literal high watching his angel, his stupid Principality, the only love of his six thousand years of coherent life and the millions of years before — fuck. Crowley reeled in his aetheric admiration, and set himself to just watch.

“Well!” Gabriel began, cheerfully, and Crowley wanted to make strong barfing noises. He pantomimed a good barf at Idiot #3, who was also watching but didn’t react because it was a snake. “After all of _your incompetence_ reflected back on the actual Apocalypse, we were all pulled up to the next level for some pretty distinctive performance reviews.”

“Very specific,” drawled the other angel, and why could Crowley not come up with his name? 

“The Metatron came down with a single order,” Gabriel continued, and the smile he was giving Aziraphale had teeth and a good bit of frustration in it. “They said we were _reassigned_ to Earth until we figured out what we had missed.”

“What you _missed,_ ” Aziraphale repeated plainly, and the cracking of his knuckles was audible to everyone. 

“Well,” Gabriel said in an obvious backpedal. Ha! He was probably still thinking of Aziraphale belching out hellfire; Crowley wiggled his fingers to confirm that he could, in fact, throw infernal flame at Gabriel from Aziraphale’s direction without hurting his angel. The angle would be a bit tricky, but he could manage it, if he had to. “Uh. Sandalphon, tell him what was said.”

 _Sandalphon!_ Crowley gave a little hiss. That was it. That smug little wanker who’d waddled into Sodom and Gomorrah as if he’d owned the place. Cheeky arse-kisser. 

“Metatron said,” Sandalphon began, clasping his hands around his generous middle and attempting to look bored. Crowley thought he looked more constipated than anything, but gave him points for effort. “They said that only _one_ angel had managed to figure it out, and that we were hereby on _administrative leave_ until we had figured it out as well.”

“Hm.” Aziraphale leaned back against his desk and crossed his arms. “Figured out _what,_ if I might ask?”

“Aziraphale!” Gabriel put on his best corporate grin. Crowley knew that one; he’d taken credit for it. “Don’t you see? _You’re_ the one angel! You have to be.”

“Obviously,” Sandalphon drawled. “No one else was involved, you see.”

Crowley was watching closely enough to see a triumphant smile cross Aziraphale’s face, for the tiniest split second, before carefully schooled back into his best bland bookkeeper’s face. “And where are the other archangels, then?”

“Hmph,” said Gabriel, and he turned away as if miffed.

“When we landed,” said Sandalphon, “Uriel took one look around, laughed, said, _‘oh, I see,’_ and then they were gone.”

“Right back up,” Gabriel added with a gesture Crowley wasn’t sure he realized was quite insulting. He was definitely bothered by this, Crowley noted, which made it even better.

“And Michael said she was off to crosscheck the backchannels,” Sandalphon continued.

“Which is insane,” Gabriel whined, “because there aren’t any backchannels!”

Crowley let a couple things fall into place in his head, carefully, the way stones fell into a pond, and thought _Hastur, you dog_ with a little bit of admiration for someone sneaky enough to get an angel on the side but with enough balls to have it be _Michael._ He was, begrudgingly, impressed.

“And we came to you.” Sandalphon smiled at Aziraphale and that was even more teeth, uneven and gold-spattered. Crowley gave a silent hiss. It was a truly awful look. 

Aziraphale was smiling now, the bland genial smile of someone who gave absolutely no fucks. “And you came to me,” he said, although he chuckled after and murmured, “Well _done,_ Uriel.”

“Well, yes,” said Gabriel, in the tone of voice one might use with a small recalcitrant child. “So _you_ can tell us what we’ve missed and _we_ can get out of your hair.”

“Ah.” Aziraphale rounded his desk and sat down in his chair, steepling his fingers together in front of his mouth. Crowley was pleased to see a few of the snakes wind their way up the back of the chair, one tangling around Aziraphale’s ankle. “It’s that simple, you think?”

“Yes,” Gabriel replied immediately, as if it were obvious. “You get it, we don’t, you tell us what we’re missing and we can go _home._ ”

“I’m not fond of the weather here,” Sandalphon added as an aside, and Crowley took a second to summon a nice thick London raincloud that would really have the urge to go in about ten minutes.

Aziraphale’s index fingers were tapping against each other. Crowley was reminded of the particular look his angel got when deciphering the last clue of the crossword, or remembering a particularly tricky cross-reference he could pull into an argument; there was something so clever going on in that angelic brain and it caught Crowley’s breath, again, at how absolutely _beautiful_ Aziraphale was, sitting here in his bookshop with all the power at his fingertips.

“You’ve forgotten something,” Aziraphale said, conversationally. “Why on _Earth_ would I want to _help you?_ ”

Crowley found himself convinced that Gabriel’s gasp of surprise was genuine, because Gabriel really was in fact that stupid. 

‘You’ve come into _my_ home,” Aziraphale said, standing up again, “after an entire - existence - of belittling and doubting me, not to _mention_ that dreadful thing with the Hellfire. And you really think I’m going to help you _cheat?_ ”

“You’re still an angel,” Gabriel said, like it was obvious. “Of course you’re here to help.”

“You’ll find it a bit more complicated.” Aziraphale moved to plant his feet solidly on the ground behind his desk, his hands braced on his hips. It was stunning; it was incredible. Crowley was experiencing another heart attack and about four inappropriate boners at the same time as he watched.

Sandalphon took a step closer. Crowley flexed his fingers; he knew this angel was the bruiser of the group, and the second he touched Aziraphale, he’d find his arse on the moon. “I think you should reconsider, Aziraphale,” said Sandalphon, like a threat.

Aziraphale just smiled. “I think _you_ should have paid closer attention,” he said calmly, as if he were talking to a particularly addlepated child, or Brian. “You’re used to being beastly, I’m sure. But you’re forgetting something.”

“Like what?” Sandalphon growled, taking another step.

Aziraphale drew himself up primly. “That this is the _heart_ of my Principality,” he declared proudly, “and as the saying goes, _you_ are on _my turf_ now.” It echoed on the ethereal plane, and Crowley felt his wings shiver.

Sandalphon stared. 

“So do kindly avoid letting the door strike you on your way out,” Aziraphale continued, and something in it was brimming with the faintest bit of a power deeper than he’d shown yet: the kind of echo that made you reconsider the size of the room you were standing in. “And don’t come back.”

This would have been perfect enough. But there was movement over atop one of the cabinets that caught Crowley’s eye, and — 

Nothing he could have done would have stopped it from happening, even if he had wanted to.

Death From Above _launched_ herself off of the bookshelf and directly into Gabriel’s hair. Her tail struck him clear across the face with the impact, making an incredible smacking sound, and the archangel _howled_ like a small child whose cereal had been overturned into their lap. “Infernal creature!” Gabriel was yelling, and Sandalphon - rather than helping - existed the shop in a series of high-pitched hoots and scrambling steps, horrified eyes on Gabriel. 

“Mahala,” Aziraphale said sternly, “to _me,”_ and the snake let itself be pulled from Gabriel’s hair and into Aziraphale’s welcoming arms.

Crowley laughed so hard he ended up falling down the stairs, rolled up into some convoluted snake-man shape with limbs softening as he hit every step on the way down. It didn’t matter. He hit the floor and curled into himself, laughing hysterically, having gone silent halfway down the staircase because his stomach hurt so much.

The archangels were long gone by the time Crowley was able to open his eyes through the tears, still giggling helplessly as if he’d lost all control over his own physical form.

“Really,” Aziraphale scolded him, standing above him with Death From Above around his shoulders. “You didn’t need to do that.”

“She did it on her own!” Crowley wailed through another wave of laughter. “She’s a _flying snake,_ Aziraphale, I didn’t have to do anything!”

Aziraphale just gave a little sniff which managed to properly convey how miffed he was.

“Angel,” said Crowley, sprawling himself across the floor. He felt like his heart was going to explode, which was probably the cause of the entirely lovesick smile he felt stretched across his face. “Angel. _Aziraphale._ I need you to take me to bed right now.”

Aziraphale somehow managed to look intrigued, confused, exasperated, and horny all at the same time.

“That was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life,” Crowley continued, all of his limbs limp and askew across the floor and his entire body aching with adoration. “You’re the most incredible thing in the entire world. Please take me to bed.”

“Well,” said Aziraphale, drawing himself up primly and giving Crowley that sly little smile he saved for incredibly erotic occasions. “If you insist, my dear.”

As they passed through the kitchen, Crowley noted that Ham and Sausage had derailed into eating the crossword, having gotten absolutely nowhere on it because they were, in fact, normal boring snakes who cannot read.

———

“But,” Crowley said, three hours later and apropos to nothing. They were lying in bed, nude, entwined in each other; Crowley had his head on Aziraphale’s stomach, and Aziraphale’s hands were in his hair, and Crowley could have spent at least a thousand years just doing this. “Do you know what they were talking about, angel?”

“Of course I do,” Aziraphale replied promptly. “Quite clever of the Almighty, really. I might consider taking back some of the more horrid things I’ve said about Her recently.” He paused. “Although it also smacks a bit of _too little too late_ , I might think.”

“Mph.” Crowley shut his eyes again, basking for a moment in these pesky human _feelings_ of comfort and tenderness. “So what is it?”

“It’s really quite straightforward,” Aziraphale told him. “Even you could figure it out, my dear.”

“Sure,” Crowley agreed absently, “but I don’t feel like it.”

He felt the covers start to twist in the way that meant the miracle at the door was finally waning and the snakes were finding their way into the bedroom. They never passed up the opportunity to entwine themselves into a nice warm snuggle, which Crowley recognized as a trait he may have inadvertently passed down to all of them. He didn’t bother to move and see who it was. 

Aziraphale’s fingers moved in his hair, tugging a bit as his angel picked out a small section to braid. “I’m so glad you’ve grown your hair out again,” he said. “It really is quite lovely.”

“And stylish,” Crowley murmured, eyes still closed. Aziraphale had braided his hair once or twice or a few dozen times over the millenia, usually when Crowley was able to trick him into the favor, but there was something so soothing about it _now,_ when he knew he could just _ask_ and Aziraphale would happily plait anything he wanted. Crowley loved keeping those small braids, tangled up in his curls, wearing something his angel had done to him with those lovely soft fingers just because he wanted to.

“It’s — well,” Aziraphale said, musing. “It’s love, darling.”

“Of course it’s love,” Crowley said, and bussed a kiss against Aziraphale’s skin. 

“Well, yes,” Aziraphale said, chuckling, “but I meant, the thing with - with the angels.”

“Right,” said Crowley. “Love?” For a brief moment he wondered whether the angels would go off looking for demonic counterparts. He tried to imagine Gabriel and Beelzebub and his eyes crossed; then, after a second, he decided he needed to stop that line of thought altogether.

“The archangels,” said Aziraphale in his lecture voice: the one he used when he knew something others didn’t (which was often) and was just a little bit smug about it (which was often). His fingers didn’t still in Crowley’s hair, and Crowley let his eyes flutter shut again. “Their understanding of the world begins and ends with the Almighty. They’ve _quite_ forgotten Her Son.”

Crowley thought about it. His memories of Jesus were a long time ago, but he absolutely hadn’t forgotten tempting the Son of God. “That’s right,” he drawled slowly against Aziraphale’s belly. “Wanted everyone to get along, right?”

“His entire message was love,” said Aziraphale primly. “He wanted everyone to love their neighbors, love strangers, and _especially_ love those who are _less fortunate._ ”

His angel stopped petting his hair for a second, tugging gently to secure Crowley’s attention. (This wasn’t hard to do - Crowley could sit and listen to Aziraphale for hours - but Aziraphale still did it sometimes when he was making a particularly clever point and wanted to be praised for it.) “They weren’t here when Her Son walked the earth and the message changed,” he said, almost sadly. “They don’t understand that She wants us to love _humanity_ , love this world and all the creatures on it.” Aziraphale paused. “And it isn’t hard to extend that love to others that deserve it,” he said carefully.

Crowley pressed himself up and turned so that he was looking down at Aziraphale. “Othersss?” 

“If loving you isn’t her will,” said Aziraphale softly, “then I don’t know what is, my dear.”

And Crowley felt it: that absolute rush of divine energy, that beaming and gleaming glory that was Aziraphale. It always hit somewhat like a truck, except that once the shock was over it was warmth, it was tingling and a bit naughty just like Aziraphale and it _stung_ along every single one of Crowley’s nerves and he wanted to roll around in it forever. Aziraphale kept it mostly under wraps out of a combination of embarrassment, fear for Crowley, and the fact that letting his divine nature out was a surefire way to scar some humans for life. 

But when - when Aziraphale was here, just the two of them, he liked surprising Crowley with it; it was surprising every single time because Crowley really still hadn’t wrapped his head around the fact that the angel had _these_ kinds of feelings towards _him._ It made him want to go all snakelike and curl up on top of Aziraphale and not let him move for another thirty years. 

Instead he ducked his head down into the crook of Aziraphale’s shoulder, because he really wasn’t worthy of a love like that, something so bright and full of faith and trust and Aziraphale’s entire nature shining right through it like it was okay to love a demon.

“They don’t understand,” Aziraphale continued, wrapping his arms around Crowley to hold him close. “Angels should _love_ Her creations. Extending our grace to humans - and even demons - is the most holy thing I can possibly imagine.”

Crowley said nothing because this time he was choking up, something tight and wanting in his throat; Aziraphale hadn’t always thought that about him, and even now, wrapped up in his angel’s arms, the reminder of all those desperate centuries he’d yearned after Aziraphale hurt in a way he had yet to make sense of. Crowley shoved the feeling away and focused on his human body, the languid aftermath and the comforting warmth of Aziraphale’s skin and the way that love still blazed from him like a spotlight, focused entirely on where Crowley’s soul nested (which was apparently right below where a human’s heart would be).

\------

The snakes were plotting.

Or that was the only thing that made sense to Crowley. Everywhere he went, there were snakes, and they were following him. He couldn’t get a spare moment alone without using a demonic miracle to banish them from his space, and when he did, it faded much faster than it should have.

Crowley told Aziraphale this one morning, over the espresso he’d managed to get out of the machine (which was used to spewing sugary concoctions) and Aziraphale’s usual tea and croissants. 

“You’re just overly suspicious,” Aziraphale told him, while he broke one croissant into little pieces to give to Dog and Stinky Bastard Child.

“I’m not, angel.” Crowley frowned into the espresso. He had felt dark and bitter this morning because of the _Snake Conspiracy_ \- whatever it was - but he remembered now that espresso on its own was all of the bitterness with none of the good taste. His mouth felt like it was full of fuzz, but he couldn’t dump it or Aziraphale would see and, of course, mock him.

“I mean,” he said casually, because it was a really far out idea, except that he _knew_ something was happening. “D’you think they’re picking up a little bit of - you know - from all the miracles around here?”

“Dear.” Aziraphale gave him the sunniest of smiles. “I thought you were _certain_ they were normal, Earthly snakes.”

“They are!” Crowley shot back. “Or they _were._ I can’t _tell_ now, and it’s been bothering me.”

Snakes all over for _days._ Snakes following him to the kitchen when he wanted a coffee, to the wine closet when he wanted a drink. Snakes following him into the bedroom when he wanted to miracle up a change of clothes to surprise Aziraphale. Snakes following him into the bedroom when everything in his body ached with echoes of his Fall and all he wanted was to stand in hot water and stop breathing for an hour or two. That, other than fucking, was the most private thing Crowley did, and he didn’t want anyone seeing it, not even a clutch of absolutely ass-normal fucking snakes.

“It might be possible,” said Aziraphale. “You’ve never, um…” Here he coughed delicately. “ _Had_ them before?”

Crowley scoffed. “I’ve been making sssnakes since Eden,” he shot back, because it was true: Crowley had been single-handedly behind every religious incarnation of a snake deity, behind every myth and fairy-tale that had grown about his exploits, and he’d personally created species wherever he’d gone as needed. He was _The Snake_ , the original Serpent of Eden, and yes, he’d pushed for all these many representations of snake gods and goddesses to sort of _cloud_ that issue, but at its heart, Crowley was there, still wrapped around the apple.

He sighed. “But never like… that.” Honestly, the less they said about _that_ , the better. Never with an _angel,_ was what he really meant.

“Hmm.” Aziraphale sipped at his tea. “I suppose it’s ...possible,” he mused. “They _did_ come from two heavenly beings.”

“ _Occult,_ thank you _very much._ ” Crowley stuck his tongue out at his angel.

“I meant original stock.” Aziraphale narrowed his eyes at Crowley, although just as a joke. (This was a subject they never even brushed on unless there were already three empty bottles of whiskey on the table.) “Two beings like us, congregating.”

“God, I wish you wouldn’t call it that.”

“I’m not going to call it _procreating,_ ” said Aziraphale, a little peevishly.

Crowley laughed. “Fucking, angel, we can call it fucking.”

This was a familiar argument, and Aziraphale’s face melted into that smile that meant all was happily right and aligned with celestial harmonies. “It’s _making love,_ my dear.”

Crowley made a groaning noise that sounds like half a camel and half a crow were trying to sing. “You’re impossible.”

“And you love it,” said Aziraphale, standing up from the table and going to stash away his empty teacup in the sink.

“I’m not saying it,” Crowley said into his espresso, but he knew Aziraphale could feel the way his entire body yearned, his own torn and blackened soul reaching out to the angel: to shield him, to protect him, to _have_ him. Crowley wasn’t even sure what love was anymore for a demon, but if it was anything, it was exactly how he felt about Aziraphale; how he’d always felt. He let it out now, opening a crack in the demonic walls he kept around most of his emotions -- just a bit, just a taste, as if anything could encompass the writhing feeling beneath his (non-existent) breastbone. It was a mess of pining and appreciation and desire and want and need and the absolute belief that Aziraphale was the most beautiful creation the Almighty had ever created, along with a sworn promise to protect him with _teeth._ It was a tangled ball, a wadded-up piece of paper, but it was all Crowley had, and he offered it now.

Aziraphale smiled, his cheeks pinking as he picked up on it. “Oh, my dear. You don’t have to.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To see what's going on in my life and how you can help, either [check here](https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/428417.html) or hit me up on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/sevdrag) @sevdrag!


	5. its not an anxiety bath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ends in explicit smut, which starts when Crowley takes his sulky bath. The smut got away from me and this part of this particular chapter, which ended up dragging out kinks i didn't know i wanted, has to be tagged as:
> 
>  _metaphysical occult/ethereal sex, restraints (sort of), sensory deprivation, maybe-breathplay, domming a bit, painplay via angelic speech, dunking crowley under the water for orgasms, i got tons of feelings in this porn, i'm still not sure why it came out like this, i just wanted to write some happy bath sex, i got something angsty and far kinkier than it needed to be, end my life please, also hair washing_
> 
> (tags are for this part of this chapter only, except _end my life please,_ which applies everywhere)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_BUSTS THROUGH THE WALL LIKE THE KOOL-AID MAN_ I HAVEN'T TOUCHED THIS SINCE SEPTEMBER OF LAST YEAR SO HERE'S 7500 MOTHER FUCKING WORDS MORE**
> 
> i opened another round of comms in september; then i started writing my actually-angsty GO triptych, THEN i accidentally wrote like fucking 12K for holiday fic, and NOW i am coming back to my happy Snamily fic. why did i! make plot! i just want to write goofy happy snakes and _NOW WE ARE ALL TANGLED IN SNANGST_
> 
> i dont believe this is so LONG

Crowley had, for better or worse, gotten used to having forty snakes in their joint household. He had maybe become fond of one or two of them. But he had a line, and that line was getting used to _the fucking Archangel Gabriel_ and the other one, whose name Crowley continually deleted from his memory because it wasn’t worth the brain cells to remember, being around in London.

They came around to the shop every few days - usually finding Aziraphale at his desk, quietly ignoring all the customers - to ask questions. _What’s the Divine Plan? Is this what She wants us to learn? Why do you eat that — what’s it called? Muffin?_ Crowley had mostly stayed away; he wasn’t sure whether Aziraphale wanted the inevitable fight that would occur the second he got within punching distance of Gabriel’s nose, and besides, they just made him angry.

Forty snakes was one thing. Two archangels was _quite another indeed._

He’d got to recognizing the oncoming aura as they appeared before the shop - it scented of ozone and fabric softener and arrogance, to Crowley’s tongue - and he’d either retreat back to his own flat or hang around in the back room. Either one usually involved a lot of angry hissing and, often, scotch.

Then one day after waking up - Crowley having plastered himself to Aziraphale’s warmth as usual, which he was taking his damned time to undo - Aziraphale said, “You can come into the shop, you know. When _they’re_ here.”

It was tentative, which caught Crowley’s attention. Usually Aziraphale only used that voice when he was apologizing for something. “Not sure I can be in the same room with them without hurting them both, angel,” he said, casually enough that Aziraphale would understand he wasn’t upset about anything, really.

“Hmm.” It was that little hum Aziraphale always made when he had more to say but was afraid of being a bother.

“C’mon, angel. Out with it.”

Aziraphale sighed, settling Crowley a little bit closer, which was alright with him. “I didn’t want you to think I… don’t want them to know about. Well. Us. Our life here.” He paused, and a hand came up to gently run through Crowley’s hair. “I’m not _ashamed_ of you, Crowley. I’m protective, yes, but I’m not afraid to let Gabriel and Sandalphon see what we have.”

Crowley took a minute to forget Sandalphon’s name again, and then thought carefully. This had, obviously, been eating at Aziraphale for some time. They’d worked on their communication - enough to end up here, in love and in bed - but they both still occasionally had trouble with the whole human feelings bits. 

“Aziraphale,” he said, making sure his angel caught the use of his name. “I’m not worried about that. I was really just trying to cause the least trouble I could for you.”

To his surprise, Aziraphale chuckled beneath him. “That’s unusual,” he said primly, “you _are_ a demon.”

Crowley snorted. “Let me ask you a different question, angel. Do you want me there?”

“I always want you with me, everywhere,” Aziraphale said with the kind of beaming smile that made Crowley’s mashed-up insides feel like they were melting. Some angelic nonsense, Crowley was sure of it. “And it’s your choice. But I wanted you to know that I wasn’t expecting… anything. Either way.”

Crowley pressed his face into whatever part of Aziraphale he was on (his senses were a little hazy) and breathed in until the whole mushy feeling thing passed on. Right. “I’m not promising not to punch either one of them,” he finally mumbled into Aziraphale’s skin.

“Oh, my dear,” said his angel, “I would hope not. I think _I_ have the right to throw the first punch.”

———

The Snake Conspiracy continued. It was even worse now, snakes following him everywhere, flat and bookshop both. If any part of Crowley stood still for longer than a handful of seconds, it was guaranteed to have at least one snake on it; he’d fallen asleep on his couch one afternoon and woken up to twenty-seven of them _on him_. 

It was — well, it was mostly him, but it wasn’t entirely him. Aziraphale often had one or two snakes on him at all times, but Aziraphale _liked_ wearing snakes as scarves and accessories, so Crowley couldn’t be sure who controlled that situation, the snakes or the angel. 

It was like they were trying to — tell him something, really, but that couldn’t be it, because they were forty normal ass fucking snakes with nothing useful to say.

Although most of that theory went absolutely out the window the morning Crowley walked into the kitchen and found Aziraphale talking to them.

Crowley was still sleep-bleary, blinking as he made his way over to his dearly devoted coffeemaker and hissed something it would recognize as _caramel macchiato with an extra shot and make it snappy,_ and at first he’d figured Aziraphale was talking to himself. He was attempting to make what looked like French toast, and was happily burbling along in the background as Crowley considered a miracle that would shove the caffeine directly into this body’s pores.

“You see, Mahala, the resulting product is supposed to be sweet, but I’m not sure how it gets there. I know there’s cinnamon in the egg mixture, maybe some other spices, but what else? Oh, is it syrup?”

And Crowley wouldn’t even have bothered to register the statement - once again Aziraphale was proving that although he had the taste buds of a connoisseur he couldn’t cook worth two goddamns - except that he distinctly heard a hissing sound in response. It sounded like a question.

“Oh, that’s right,” Aziraphale replied. “Maple syrup is this delightful concoction. They take it from trees! I read the most _fabulous_ story about the development of sustainable maple farming, you know.”

Another hiss, this one very distinctly being a comment, and one that specifically sounded to his ears like _no, I wouldn’t know at all, angel._

Crowley spat his distinctly perfect caramel macchiato with an extra shot all over the kitchen island.

“Hello, dear,” Aziraphale said, turning to him with a smile. “Too hot?”

“You are talking,” Crowley said very pointedly, “to the snakes.”

Aziraphale glanced at Death From Above, who had happily wound herself around the angel’s upper arm, and shrugged. “Well, yes, I do from time to time. I’m sure they like the sound of our voices. They don’t seem to mind it.”

“Please put the spoon down and pay attention,” Crowley said, again very carefully. “Aziraphale. You are talking to the snakes.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale began, but then a replay of the last sixty seconds or so must have flashed through his mind, because he dropped the spoon and made this little _Ooohhhhh!_ noise like Crowley had just spooked him. 

“And they’re talking back,” Crowley finished, flatly. “What did you do?”

Aziraphale was extending his arm out, trying to look Death From Above in the face. She was having none of it, as Aziraphale’s armpit was particularly warm, and her head fit there just nicely, thanks. She squirmed a bit, and then raised her head out of its sanctuary to hiss at him before tucking it right back in.

“There really is no need for that language,” Aziraphale said disapprovingly.

“Why,” Crowley said, trying again. “Are the snakes talking.”

“I really have no idea.” Aziraphale gave up on Death From Above and just looked at Crowley, his eyes wide. 

“I certainly haven’t done any miracles.” Crowley narrowed his eyes and tried to look suspicious. “Have you?”

“Absolutely not.” Aziraphale managed to look flabbergasted, confused, and adorable at the same time; it was a good look on him. “I would never. They’re our children, Crowley.”

“Right.” Crowley sat down at the table. He’d acquired three snakes round his ankles while standing still and talking to Aziraphale. He picked up Dog, who had been enthusiastically working his way up to Crowley’s thigh while he’d been distracted, and held the snake out in front of his face. “Is it all of them?”

Dog hissed at Crowley, and then tried to climb his forearm instead while Crowley was distracted trying to figure out how he had heard _yes, you absolute idiot_ come from a tongue that made no words whatsoever.

“Angel,” he said, still using his calmest voice on purpose. If he didn’t focus very hard on sounding calm, he was absolutely going to lose his shit. “Our snakes are talking now.”

 _We like the names,_ Sausage hissed as they attempted - and failed - to climb a table leg. 

“Oh, good,” Aziraphale replied, still a little distracted. “I did try.”

“Maybe they mean my names,” Crowley retorted, finally allowing Dog to rest in a jumble of loops around his elbow. “Dog’s a good name. Name of a Hellhound, that is.”

 _We like having names._ Death From Above drew her head back from Aziraphale’s armpit long enough to stare Crowley down. _All of us like having names. You could name us again. We would like it. How many names can we have?_

“Oh dear,” said Aziraphale faintly.

Crowley very carefully put his head down on the table, gently banging his forehead against it a few times, and closed his eyes.

———

As it turned out, snakes had a lot of things to say once they figured out they were being understood. (Rowdy Boy and Eagle Bait, particularly, had taken a while to catch on, but in the end Aziraphale had made sure to cheerfully introduce himself to all forty of them, one at a time.)

The snakes didn’t speak in thoughts longer than maybe seven or eight words at a time. They repeated themselves a lot. They asked a lot of questions about things Crowley had never really had reason to think about. 

It was, quite literally, worse than the Them, and Crowley hated it.

Aziraphale, of course, was over the moon about it, if a little overwhelmed at the beginning by the number of little voices in the room once Crowley had lifted his head up off the table and made himself another four coffees. For Aziraphale, it was equivalent to forty minuscule brains all reaching for knowledge, which was the kind of thing that made his angel light up like a tree on fire. He’d spent the morning reading to them, knowing now that they could understand it. It had taken three hours to get through the single Peppa Pig book Aziraphale had been able to summon, what with all the questions. _What is pig? What is said? Can I sit on your tail?_ (The latter having come from poor Throat-Ripper, who was having a terrible time adjusting snake thoughts to human appendages.)

Crowley had a headache, a caffeine buzz, and a distinct urge to sneak back into the bed and sleep for about forty years. 

And this hadn’t been the source of the Snake Conspiracy, either, because they were _still_ following him around. All over snakes in the bathroom when he came in to take a nice relaxing shower. All over snakes when he just wanted to watch telly, not become a living seething blanket. Snakes up his trousers, snakes round his wrists; Aziraphale had the _sheer audacity_ to be a bit jealous.

“Why do you all follow me around like a bloody shadow?” Crowley ended up yelling, one day when he’d gotten up to yell at the fancy coffeemaker until it made him a vanilla latte, only to turn around and see what felt like half of the snakes in the apartment approaching him, eager, hissing and murmuring in that way they’d adopted—

Forty snake voices fell absolutely silent.

(This is actually an exaggeration. Only twenty-seven of the snakes had been even bothering to speak, the rest involved in other snakelike activities like eating, sleeping, or not doing crossword puzzles. Of that twenty-seven, only seventeen had actually been attempting to speak with Crowley. Four snakes were having a conversation on their own, Ham and Sausage were trying to sing a duet, and poor Blaze It 420 had found itself reciting the somewhat confusing rap lyrics of Ludacris as if they were Shakespeare. The other snakes were with Aziraphale.)

“Oh,” Crowley said, taking a very threatening drink of his latte. “Talk all you want about other stuff, but no one has an answer when your _CREATOR,_ ” which was yelled in the same manner Crowley used to address his plants: loud, angry, and entirely transparent; “when I have an _easy_ question for you?”

Seventeen snakes kept their snake mouths very, very shut.

“Look,” Crowley said, and he crouched down. This was exciting; he hadn’t been able to do a real good threatening since the plants had all dumped him for Aziraphale; he still yelled at them, sure, but they took it like a bunch of college seniors who already knew what they were doing with their lives and really weren’t interested in frothing rage. “I will _figure out_ why you’re all being like thisss, and then I will punisssh you. Badly. Thisss is already ridiculousss,” he hissed, and went to turn away from them. It hurt, somewhere in the cavity of the confused organ sitting in his chest, to think that — oh, for Hell- Heave— _Fucking_ sake, these were not traditional children, these were the sorts of normal snakes he’d borne all through history, just with an extra trick they’d picked up from an angel. No need to be a _sad sack_ about it, really. He should get back to the threatening bits; those were usually entertaining.

Chad hissed, offering something. _Can’t say now. Don’t know the words. You smell good?_

“Thanks,” Crowley drawled, utterly distracted. “It’s a new cologne, my barber suggested it.”

———

Three days later Gabriel and the Other One showed back up at the shop, and Crowley had really had enough: he was itching for a fight, and the only targets he had regularly were an angel he’d rather die than hurt and forty snake children he wasn’t going to admit to liking but also would never harm. He was anxious, worried, angry, curious, and - as always - so determined to protect Aziraphale that he was willing to beat Gabriel over the head with his own leg, just given the opportunity. So when they’d entered the shop and while Aziraphale was still making stupid pleasantries at them, Crowley took a deep breath and — descended the staircase, slowly, one deliberate step at a time, making sure his snakeskin boots (whether or not they were feet being entirely irrelevant at this point) made that satisfying clicking sound he related with Nanny Ashtoreth and angry schoolteachers. 

“Oh,” said Gabriel, as if he’d just thrown up in his mouth a little bit. “It’s _you_.”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley said, keeping his voice as light and casual as possible. “There seems to be a _garbage problem_ in your bookshop.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said, and he blushed in that way he did when Crowley had said something clever but he didn’t quite want to laugh. That other angel echoed it with an _“Oh”_ that could have severed copper piping in the right situation.

“Gabriel!” Crowley exclaimed, overly jovial and enjoying every second of both archangels cringing at his tones. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Like, a long while, that is. And you, uhhhh…” he let his voice trail off, upwards, with a gesture he hoped was as insulting as it was generic. “Never bothered with you, up there.” 

“Sandalphon,” the other angel said, and Crowley forgot the name as soon as he possibly could. 

“Right then, ah, what are you doing in this _bookshop?_ ” Crowley made sure to pronounce all syllables, and left a small but noticeable hiss on the _s_ because he thought it would be extra annoying.

“We’re here for Aziraphale,” Gabriel said, showing his teeth. Crowley couldn’t tell whether he was baring his fangs or actually attempting to smile; whichever it was, Gabriel was quite bad at it.

“Are you buying a book?” Crowley completed the stairs and swaggered over to stand by Aziraphale, a bit next to him and a bit behind. “I wasn’t aware we sold anything that would interest… _you_.” The last word was said with the most perfect raised eyebrow Crowley could summon without a miracle, and he was pleased to see Gabriel taking the full force of it.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale chided, but in that tone of voice that meant Crowley needed to stop before Aziraphale burst out laughing.

Silence fell, tense and awkward. Crowley grinned, watching Gabriel and Nameless And Boring glance back and forth between each other, between Crowley and Aziraphale, and - longingly - at the door.

“So,” Gabriel said finally, through a clenched jaw. “How are the snakes.” It sounded like the kind of banal office water-cooler talk Crowley had invented back in 1952. 

Aziraphale sighed, melting a little. “They’re _lovely,_ ” he cooed, reaching up to stroke a finger down Stinky Bastard Child’s scales. “Would you like to meet them this time?” 

Gabriel and the Other One recoiled, visibly, and Crowley chortled. He pushed his sunglasses up into his hair and let his tongue flicker a little forked. “You don’t like the children?”

“Aziraphale,” Gabriel said, and he was almost pleading. “All we need is the answer. We don’t want to keep bothering you any more than you want to be bothered.”

“Maybe we could _annoy_ him into answering,” Dull As Nails drawled, sounding smug. “Isn’t that a human thing? Being annoying, that is.”

“Sandalphon,” Gabriel said, sounding intrigued; Crowley set his brain to deleting that name from all of his memories. “How would we do that?”

Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “It won’t work,” he told them. “Crowley wore me out a long time ago.”

Gabriel froze, then, and his eyes flicked over to Crowley, disapproving and yet somehow _resigned._ “The demon Crowley. A long time ago. Oh, oh no.”

 _“What,”_ Crowley said quite nastily, readying his punching fist. 

“We have to make a demon friend,” Gabriel told Box Of Hammers, his face looking like he’d tasted something extremely foul. “I bet that’s it.”

“That’s not,” Aziraphale started, and then paused. “Well, that’s part of it, I guess. It’s as good a first step as any.” A faint smirk was hovering around his lips, something Crowley caught as he started to circle around Aziraphale, anxiety taking over. 

“Crowley,” Gabriel ordered, “be my friend.”

“When Hell freezesss over,” Crowley hissed back. “I wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”

“I have no idea what that means.” Gabriel frowned. It was nearly a pout. Crowley could see Aziraphale biting his lip to keep from giggling.

“It means,” the Other One told Gabriel smugly, “the piss is meant to put out the fire, see.”

Gabriel’s forehead wrinkled with a frown. “But angels don’t piss.”

 _“Anyway,”_ Aziraphale interrupted with the tiniest hint of angelic wrath underlining the word, “Crowley’s quite taken, thank you, you’ll have to go find your own.”

This statement hit the room like a ton of bricks landing on another ton of bricks. Both Gabriel and Beige looked like they were being forced to eat something, staring into space in obviously disgusted thought.

“Fine, I have a plan,” Gabriel announced, standing up and straightening his shoulders. “Come on, Sandalphon. We’ll figure this out.”

“Now I have to forget his name _again_ ,” Crowley murmured as they walked out the door of the bookshop. He twitched his fingers so that the door slammed behind them, chiming the little bell somewhat forcefully.

“Be good, dear,” Aziraphale said absentmindedly. “This should be fun to watch.”

———

Crowley was working in the solarium again. Aziraphale had been adding onto it vaguely, just big hand wave miracles that pushed out space into the ether and added whatever sort of thing Aziraphale had been thinking about at that moment; it made the garden exciting, but it didn’t _work,_ and it wasn’t an ideal environment for the snakes besides. Crowley had _standards_ when it came to plants. 

Ignoramus, Harlot, and Stank had been watching Crowley work. He was sure there were other snakes around watching, too, but those three had crowded around the patch of wet earth where he was carefully digging up whatever Aziraphale had planted here - was it really plain old ivy? Crowley was going to have words - and replacing it with alternating earth stars and pothos. He’d saved the orchids, which were at least a good idea but had been placed _entirely_ wrong, to lay them along the curve of the path he and Aziraphale took around the terrarium to visit the snakes in their natural environment.

 _Smells good,_ Harlot told him. _Good earth._

 _Tastes green,_ Stank added.

“Of course it does,” Crowley shot back, mildly annoyed at the entire situation: he was the _original_ Snake, the Serpent of Eden, and he knew what the fuck he was _doing_ with his _plants_ thank you very much. He didn’t need their approval, he didn’t need Aziraphale messing with what had been _his_ plant room, and he didn’t need the running commentary on what he was doing. He didn’t need talking snakes, he didn’t need to be talking back; Heaven, he didn’t need forty snakes in his house in the _first_ place.

It dawned on Crowley, slowly, like a cheap bottle of Merlot slowly evolving itself into a Bordeaux blend over the course of an evening, that he was upset about something. Or, really, upset in general.

He rocked back on his heels and sighed. These moods came on, occasionally, and if Crowley had had any idea of how to predict them, he would have already miracled whatever stupid part of his human brain was making these idiot chemicals in the first place. (Crowley’s brain, much like Crowley’s single functional human organ, was a mysterious collection of pieces and parts that, as a collective, had absolutely nothing in common with a standard human brain.)

Crowley inhaled through his mouth, letting his tongue flicker against it: the scent of wet dirt here in the humid tropical corner of the room, the faint scent of the orchids swimming along; the strange taste-scent of the snakes, an acidic tang somewhat like pineapple; the thick greenery around him. The smell of water, since Aziraphale had somehow miracled an entire water garden into the place without asking. The scent of his own discontent, a grumpy waft of smoke and embers.

He tried to get back to his task, digging his fingers deep into the wet soil. The feel of earth usually calmed him, reminding him of the Garden, the lush ground there and that feeling that he’d come upon something new, something different, something that might fit him better than Heaven or Hell — but it wasn’t working. Crowley tugged up more of the ivy, setting it aside, and combed through the rich silt with his fingertips before reaching for one of the other plants he’d pulled up and carefully miracling it into another earth star. He dug a hole with his long knobby fingers, gently set the plant in, patted the earth back into place.

 _Something’s wrong,_ Stank said. 

Ignoramus lifted his head, tongue flicking out. _Father’s angry?_

“Oh my Go- fucking Something,” Crowley spat, and stood up. “Can I have a _moment_ of blessed _privacy_ around here these days?”

He stalked out of the terrarium towards the bathroom, throwing the door open, but then — shut the door and opened it more carefully, this time expecting the grand sunken bath Aziraphale had invented when they’d just been getting used to the kids. Crowley imagined it without any snakes. For once, it worked.

He tossed off his clothes with one dramatic sweep of his hand and carefully shut the door behind him, hissing something like a miracle to hopefully keep the snakes from intruding. Another flick of his fingers, and the sunken tub - Jacuzzi? - bath - thing was full of deliciously hot water and whatever mixture of fancy ingredients Aziraphale had used last time. 

Crowley walked down the four stairs into the center of the bath, which came up almost to his useless bellybutton. With an overly dramatic sigh, he let himself sink until he could duck his head under, then kicked his legs up to float on the surface, arms out, eyes closed, breathing ragged.

Why was he _like_ this? Why did he always _do_ this? It was like some irreversible, uncontrollable, integral part of his demon’s soul, always clawing up from the dark depths inside him to scratch away at everything he’d been so desperate to keep, all the things he’d tried to _hard_ to build and make. Crowley didn’t try to be _good,_ per se, but he _tried_ to be things for Aziraphale, and there was this bleak darkness spiraling up inside him, wrapped around whatever organ worked as his heart. 

The water was warm, and Crowley floated, and felt tears in his eyes and his throat.

Eventually awareness began to grow: the feeling of eyes on him, more eyes than any human would ever even be aware of, and Crowley felt the tightness in his throat stab through again. The eyes blinked, turned on him with such compassion and love that Crowley rolled over in the water and let himself sink to the bottom for a long moment. His corporation didn’t need breath, so he simply opened his snake-eyes and watched his hair float around his face for a while, only surfacing when he heard the underwater disturbance that was Aziraphale getting into the bath.

His angel had shut all of his eyes - save the two human ones his corporation bore and his third eye, in the center of his forehead, that was always open - and tucked them away, appearing nothing more than human as he sank down into the water up to his shoulders. Aziraphale’s expression was worried, concern wrinkling his brow and that soft sympathy echoed in his gaze. 

“I don’t want to,” Crowley said, jerking away from all of that compassion on display. “Don’t wanna talk,” he mumbled, because he didn’t. Crowley’s words came easy when he was wiling, when he was entertaining, when he was telling Aziraphale funny stories and trying to make jokes. When it came to anything that even remotely might be related to serious, Crowley’s words all turned into stammers and stutters, broken into little pieces by that clawing, hungry thing inside him that was a part of his demonic essence, a part he would never be able to silence.

“Fine,” Aziraphale said, all gentle strength. “Lie back down, Crowley. Let me wash your hair.”

Aziraphale snapped, and a long reclining chair appeared right in the middle of the bath, some cross between a pool chair and a chaise lounge. It was the perfect height for Crowley to slip into, his head tipped back on the edge of the chair, face above water, the rest of him settling just beneath the surface.

His ears were above water, so Crowley could hear as Aziraphale moved to the side, splashing as he reached for whatever supplies he needed. Crowley could tell when his angel had returned and wasn’t startled by the thick fingers coming to gently cup his head, gather his long hair together so that it lay over the back of the chair.

At first Aziraphale said nothing, simply plying his fingers through Crowley’s hair slowly, soothingly. Crowley had always loved the feel of someone’s hands in his hair - it made him quite weak, in fact - and ever since he’d decided to grow it out forcibly after the failed Apocalypse, there’d been nothing quite like Aziraphale’s steady broad hands massaging at his scalp and tugging at the strands. 

“Can you tell me,” Aziraphale started slowly as he lathered Crowley’s hair gently; the air smelt of tea tree and lavender. “Did something happen, my love?”

Crowley’s innards were warring with themselves: that rich soft thread that always responded to Aziraphale’s adoration, tangled up in the snarl of his angry upset, all of it stopping the words from flowing.

“Dunno,” Crowley replied, feeling his body relax further as Aziraphale gestured water into his hair, rinsing out the soft suds. He _did_ know, but it was all tangled in with petty annoyance and frustration and it wasn’t a thing Crowley could explain with human sentences. “‘S too much, angel.”

“Too much what?” Aziraphale was working his fingers into Crowley’s locks, fingertips rubbing at his skull, and the smell of the hibiscus conditioner bled slowly into the air. “Just say it, even if you think it sounds silly.”

Crowley could feel his corporation relaxing, at least, and even if there was still a dark tangle in the area of his stomach, he felt his shoulders sink. “Dunno. Snakes. Archangels. All of it.” His hands flickered above the surface of the bath water for a second, gesturing, hoping it would stand in for words. 

For a long time there was nothing but silence and the feeling of Aziraphale’s fingertips gently working tension away from Crowley’s temples, rubbing peace into the base of his skull. “Are you worried?” He asked, eventually, and Crowley opened his eyes.

“Nah,” he said first, and then, “Dunno,” followed by “Yeah, probably.” It was quite the admission. Crowley had been determined to show no fear to Heaven and Hell alike, had made himself confident in their ability to turn both sides away with the two of them on their own side. But having Archangels hovering around at the edges of their existence had worry strumming through Crowley’s wings, hitting a harmonic with his deepest and darkest fear, and it was setting him off-balance. 

“Alright,” Aziraphale said simply. He had started to rinse the conditioner from Crowley’s hair, and was letting his fingers trail through the dangling curls and along the edges of Crowley’s face. “And the children?”

“God - Satan - _fuck,_ ” Crowley stammered and spat, and Aziraphale’s fingers moved down Crowley’s face slowly, stopping to massage softly at the gap under his ear, at the soft space beneath his cheekbones. Crowley tried to anchor himself to that, and closed his eyes again. “Angel, there are forty snakes living in my flat. It isn’t big enough for us and forty snakes. And having forty snakes that want to _talk_ , that ask questions and want to have conversations, I’m…”

“I thought it was lovely, dear, being able to understand them,” Aziraphale said, slowly. “But you’re not getting an inch of privacy, are you?”

“No,” Crowley said, and it caught in his throat like a howl gone too dark; he cut it off. “And it isn’t…” _That_ thought twisted right up his throat like a corkscrew trying to open a bottle of wine the human way, and Crowley rolled his head sideways, away. The guilt slammed into him, harsh and brutal like a fist. He shouldn’t be feeling any of this. Demons didn’t - demons didn’t _do_ this - demons didn’t have children, offspring, snakes - demons didn’t—

Crowley grit his teeth and thought about screaming.

Aziraphale’s fingers came down to Crowley’s neck and shoulders, gently working over the soft spaces above his collarbones, the tight places in his neck. He could feel the chair shifting beneath him as Aziraphale’s will lengthened and raised it for better access, and sighed as Aziraphale’s fingers became warm and slippery with his favorite massage oil, the one that smelled like chocolates. Aziraphale made it feel welcome, safe, like Crowley could — could speak these words, make this tight twisting feeling shape itself into a vocabulary, and Aziraphale would… accept them, absorb them, acknowledge them as legitimate no matter how much Crowley struggled in giving them voice. It loosened something in him, and Aziraphale just kept murmuring small tiny endearments into his skin as he rubbed and pressed, divine fingertips tingling with comfort.

“They weren’t supposed to be kids,” Crowley admitted finally, his voice small and choked. “They aren’t supposed to be anything but snakes. Not even pets. Especially not children.”

 _“Oh,”_ Aziraphale said all of a sudden, and Crowley felt something in the air shift: it prickled on his skin, raising goosebumps, as if Aziraphale’s eyes had all suddenly opened in a realization. “Oh, Crowley.”

Crowley went to say something dismissive or conciliatory or — he didn’t really know what he was going to say, and it didn’t matter, because Aziraphale’s wide palms were moving down his chest and over his nipples. Crowley, not having expected any of this, caught the unsaid sentence in an embarrassing gasp as it turned into an unintelligible noise leaving his lips.

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale murmured. He trailed his fingers back up from Crowley’s stomach and circled both nipples with a delicate trace of thumbs. Crowley swallowed his tongue. “Is this alright? Can I… may I touch you?”

“Ngk,” Crowley said. “Hnnnhhh. Yes, angel. Always.”

Aziraphale let one hand trail down and flattened his warm palm over Crowley’s bony stomach, his other hand continuing to circle and pinch at Crowley’s nipple. It sent jolts of electricity through Crowley’s languid body, muscle groups tensing and releasing at the stimulation. Another noise escaped Crowley’s wrecked throat. 

“I’m sorry,” Aziraphale repeated, and it penetrated the fog in Crowley’s mind this time.

“S’ry for what, angel?” His brain was still a fog of nerve endings; his cock was twitching beneath the surface of the water, despite the absolutely _soggy_ calm he’d ended up floating in, all driven by Aziraphale’s fingers and voice. “‘S isn’t y’r fault,” he managed, his vocal cords melting as Aziraphale’s fingers circled low on his abdomen. “Wha’sss thisss—?”

 _“Crowley,”_ said Aziraphale, and it was the voice of an angel on a mission; some part of Crowley reared up to face it head-on, but the other parts, the instinctual parts that recognized Aziraphale, all simply released and relaxed, bowing down and submitting to the Voice. 

Aziraphale swallowed. It made a rough noise, echoed in the corners of the otherwise-empty bathroom. “I seem to have overlooked something,” his angel said, quite calmly and casually, as if his hand wasn’t moving lower on Crowley’s belly until his fingertips were teasing at the trail of hair that led down between Crowley’s legs. 

“Ngk,” said Crowley, with all of the coherency he could summon at the moment.

“It was unexpected,” Aziraphale said, and he was now leaning forward behind Crowley, having shifted the chair into whatever form allowed him the access he wanted. The hand that had been teasing at Crowley’s nipples now came up to stroke along the line of Crowley’s throat, a light and tentative touch that made Crowley moan and jerk his hips - unexpectedly, instinctively - as Aziraphale’s mouth landed on the other side of his neck, angelic tongue dancing its own gavotte over his skin. “I realize that.”

Crowley made some other kind of incoherent noise because Aziraphale’s fingers were now tracing the lines between his hip and groin, that sensitive skin made fire-bright by dragging fingertips. His cock was more than hard, now, his skin desperately responding to whatever emotions Aziraphale was putting out into the air: needy, wanting, appreciative and greedy at the same time — Crowley’s skin swallowed it all and begged for more.

“I thought it was so charming,” Aziraphale said into his neck, teeth and tongue both working at opposite sides of the spectrum, rough and tender in alternating stanzas. “I was - flattered, really - at the thought that you and I could have come together to make — anything, darling, _anything_ we do together is _miraculous,_ and you need to know how much I love that. But you’re right, you’re absolutely right, I got lost in it, didn’t I?”

“Haven’t,” Crowley started, but then Aziraphale’s fingers closed around the base of his cock, and some kind of miracle had made them oil-slick - not depending on the bath water to be enough - and Aziraphale’s hand moved, slowly and inexorably tight, all determined-like, and Crowley forgot what he was trying to say. He was overwhelmed: the warm water all around him, and Aziraphale still behind him, fingers tracing the line of tendons and bone beneath his skin while his hand gently rocked up Crowley’s cock. 

“I know you love them.” Aziraphale had leant down to confess it into his ear, his mouth then tracing all of the tender bits of the earlobe. “And I do as well. A miracle! That we made! But oh, my dearest, I did start overlooking what’s at the core of that, and that’s you and I, me and you, the things we do together.”

“Angel,” Crowley managed to say, garbled up into twelve different languages and each of them saying the same thing. Aziraphale’s fingers twisted, flickered pressure, and his cock was leaking into the warm soft water all around them, primordial and welcoming as Crowley’s back arched, his hips sliding up against Aziraphale’s fist.

“I want to remind you, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, and then his angel had come around to face him, to straddle him in whatever sort of chair-seeming structure was holding Crowley’s limp body in place, and Aziraphale leant in to kiss him with the power of a thousand suns and Crowley‘s vision went white. 

Aziraphale’s tongue was in his mouth, tracing out lips and teasing gums, and somehow Aziraphale was still murmuring things - _I love you, I need you, it’s only ever been you_ \- while his mouth spelt other words against Crowley’s. Crowley felt — enveloped. Overwhelmed. Aziraphale had sat himself on Crowley’s lap such that Crowley’s cock was rubbing up between the generous curves of Aziraphale’s arse, and he could reach down and hold the swell of those hips with his own fingers, underneath this scented, salty water, the ocean that fed the earth.

“Angel,” Crowley gasped. “Need you, fuck, _Aziraphale,_ it’s—”

“It’s what, my love,” Aziraphale murmured into his throat as his hips ground down, his cock pressing firmly against the sullen plane of Crowley’s belly, his hands sliding over Crowley’s skin as if it were blessed.

“‘T’s you,” Crowley managed to get out, his hands hauling Aziraphale’s arse back and forth, dragging cocks against skin and wanting to die from the sensation. “Ev’rythin’ else ‘s just. It’s fine. But you,” and it choked in his throat, and one hand came up to tangle in Aziraphale’s curls and bring him down for the most desperate kiss they’d had in a long while. 

“Crowley, my dear, my dearest,” and Aziraphale’s hips were working against him just as frantically; “Crowley, love, may I? Let me show you?”

Crowley nodded, strung-out and needy, and he felt the tingling waves the miracle left in its wake mere fractions of a second before Aziraphale had sunk down onto his cock, sudden but prepared, the angel’s entire back arcing like a bow shooting up into Heaven as Crowley slowly, inevitably, drove home.

The feeling was _unbelievable:_ it was _static_ at first, Crowley’s nerves all firing out of sync and at random, pulses of electrically-generated pleasure seething and ebbing over his skin like regions on a map. Aziraphale was _hot_ inside, blessed and warm, and Crowley felt the edge of an orgasm creeping up on him already at the intensity of it: his hands clutching at Aziraphale’s thick waist as his entire body arched upwards towards that brightness, pulling Aziraphale down on his cock. Just the — the thought, the burning light of it, his angel clenching on him, surrounding him; Crowley breathed in, ragged, his lungs aching.

“Darling,” Aziraphale said. _Dearest love._ The words burnt across his skin like the flick of a whip and Crowley’s hips stuttered all on their own, unable to stay still.

Crowley wasn’t even sure what was holding him up anymore. He was embraced by the water, Aziraphale spread wanton across his lap; it wasn’t just the bath, it was the sea, it was a cushion, soft and solid enough that Crowley could thrust up into Aziraphale over and over and he was coming, crying, his head momentarily sinking beneath the surface as he arched backwards. The water closed over his face and Crowley’s spine shot white-hot relief throughout his limbs, and his mouth opened to free air, to sob his release into the relative silence of underwater.

It was warm, and peaceful, and Crowley floated in soft ecstasy for a long moment, his body shuddering. Then there were hands, on his face, drawing him upwards through this ether; lips, on his, gently kissing, bringing him back into himself. Crowley was still hard. He was still inside Aziraphale. He could see the angel’s cock through the water, dark red and wanting. His hearing returned in a rush: the gentle laps of water, the ragged sound of his own breathing. Aziraphale’s essence, like a gentle persistent hum in the air all around them.

“Aziraphale,” Crowley whispered. 

Aziraphale looked down at him, a question in his eyes, and Crowley nodded.

His angel started slowly, braced against heaven— hell— _fuck_ knows what, his hips starting in gentle inexorable circles beneath the water. Crowley floated, both on the surface and beneath it, his hands running trails down Aziraphale’s soft thighs, nails scraping back up.

 _You are the heart of this,_ Aziraphale told him, and it too burned like a lash. _You are the heart of us. You always have been._

“Angel,” Crowley gasped, “’s ridiculous,” because he was a demon, he was the weak spot, he was the one with darkness grown in his heart like a vine. His hips were moving in time with Aziraphale; the angel the beat, him the drum always following, following, deeper and deeper.

Aziraphale said something in a language Crowley didn’t quite catch, but the passion in it seared his mouth as Aziraphale bent down to kiss him, catching Crowley’s wrists in his hands and extending them up above Crowley’s head — Crowley threw his head backwards again, Aziraphale’s mouth at his throat, holding him down in the water by his wrists as Crowley sank down into it once again. 

The sound of Aziraphale riding him, the slap of their flesh: it was all muffled down here, and all Crowley could feel was the sensation: Aziraphale’s weight, solid, holding down the scattered parts of him; the way Aziraphale clenched around Crowley’s cock when he allowed himself to hit that devastatingly brilliant angle. Aziraphale was still kissing him, somehow, sharing air and light and love as his hips became more frantic, pounding down around Crowley, chasing orgasm. Aziraphale breathed his love down into Crowley, drove himself down deep until he was coming, untouched, between them; Crowley felt the sudden gush of it, the current sweeping over his belly, and then he was coming in response, straining against Aziraphale’s hold on his wrists as his hips bucked his cock deeply inside Aziraphale and everything just let go.

He came back into his body warm, and relaxed. That dark tangle of angry guilt had unraveled from his stomach, seeped into the water: washed away. Aziraphale was kissing him, light touches along his brow and his cheekbones, and Crowley murmured something into it with a smile, opening his eyes.

They were in bed, wrapped up in soft dry towels, buried in soft dry sheets. Crowley’s hair was dry, his fingers soft from the water. Aziraphale looked down at him, smiling, now tracing over Crowley’s eyebrow with his thumb.

“‘M sorry,” Crowley said, because he had to.

“No,” Aziraphale said, and kissed him again. “I _am_ sorry. I need to pay more attention.”

If this is what happened when Aziraphale paid attention, Crowley thought he might actually discorporate. Dissolve. Die. “Jus’ needed to vent,” he offered instead, all the words scratchy in his throat. “‘M not… it’s. I’m.”

“I know you love them,” Aziraphale told him. “I know you love me. I know you’d burn down the earth itself for us.” He bent to gently kiss Crowley’s mouth. “That doesn’t mean you have to be _happy_ every day.”

It wasn’t quite right, but it was close enough to what Crowley needed to hear that something inside of him unwound, a last bit of tension bleeding off into the faint remains of that ether. “Wore me out,” Crowley said instead, and snuggled into Aziraphale. Whatever that had been, Crowley suspected an overly enthusiastic number of angelic miracles had been involved; he offered, softly, “Can I tempt you into a nap?”

Aziraphale’s arms closed around him, and it was quiet, soft, safe. It was just them. “A bit of a kip sounds lovely right now,” Aziraphale told him, and Crowley closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeppppp _bath sex with miracles_ i'll see myself out. i dunno. crowley needed a good dunking i guess. he usually does.
> 
> the next chapter will be funny again i promise. and it wont take me like six mcfuckin months to write. i miss snake shenanigans. snenanigans. i'll see myself out
> 
> \---
> 
> check out our blitz round [here](https://sevdrag.tumblr.com/post/190147529523/hey-yall-spots-are-still-open), help me out [here](https://seventhe.dreamwidth.org/428417.html), help me prioritize [here](https://www.patreon.com/Sevdrag), or come yell at me on tumblr [here](https://sevdrag.tumblr.com/)!!!

**Author's Note:**

> hit me up on tumblr @ [sevdrag](https://sevdrag.tumblr.com/) if this is, also, your preferred flavor of _garbage_
> 
>  _is this terrible universe one i need to keep writing in?_ send help


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